If This Isn't Nice, What Is? (Even More) Expanded Third Edition: The Graduation Speeches and Other Words to Live By

by Kurt Vonnegut, Dan Wakefield (Selected by)

Overview

A collection of 15 graduation speeches and treasured wisdom from the New York Times–bestselling literary icon and author of Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions 

"Like [that of] his literary ancestor Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut's crankiness is good-humored and sharp-witted."—A.O. Scott, The New York Times Book Review 

Master storyteller and satirist Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most in-demand commencement speakers of his time. His words were unfailingly insightful and witty, and they stayed with audience members long after graduation. Chosen and introduced by fellow novelist and friend Dan Wakefield, a selection of speeches and essays in this expanded 3rd edition include: 

• “What to Do When You Have the Power; In the Meantime, Remember to Skylark!” 
• “Why Social Justice Does More Than Art to Nourish the American Dream” 
• “How to Make Money and Find Love!” 
• “Somebody Should’ve Told Me Not to Join a Fraternity” 
• “How to Have Something Most Billionaires Don’t” 

Hilarious, razor-sharp, freewheeling, and at times deeply serious, these reflections are ideal not just for graduates but for anyone undergoing what Vonnegut would call their “long-delayed puberty ceremony”—marking the long and challenging passage to full-time adulthood.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609806101
Publisher:	Seven Stories Press
Publication date:	03/31/2020
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	108,396
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Born in 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana, KURT VONNEGUT was one of the few grandmasters of modern American letters. Called by the New York Times “the counterculture’s novelist,” his works guided a generation through the miasma of war and greed that was life in the U.S. in second half of the 20th century. After a stints as a soldier, anthropology PhD candidate, technical writer for General Electric, and salesman at a Saab dealership, Vonnegut rose to prominence with the publication ofCat’s Cradle in 1963. Several modern classics, including Slaughterhouse-Five, soon followed. Never quite embraced by the stodgier arbiters of literary taste, Vonnegut was nonetheless beloved by millions of readers throughout the world. “Given who and what I am,” he once said, “it has been presumptuous of me to write so well.” Kurt Vonnegut died in New York in 2007.

A longtime friend of Kurt Vonnegut’s, DAN WAKEFIELD is co-editor with Jerome Klinkowitz of Vonnegut’s Complete Stories, which the New York Times called “a fascinating portrait-of-the-artist-on-the-make in the booming 1950s.” Wakefield also edited and introduced Kurt Vonnegut: Letters. He is the author of the memoirs New York in the Fifties and Returning: A Spiritual Journey. His novel Going All the Way was made into a movie starring Ben Affleck. Dan Wakefield also created the NBC prime time series James at Fifteen. He is currently at work on a YA biography of Kurt Vonnegut for Seven Stories. He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Date of Birth:

November 11, 1922

Date of Death:

April 11, 2007

Place of Birth:

Indianapolis, Indiana

Place of Death:

New York, New York

Education:

Cornell University, 1940-42; Carnegie-Mellon University, 1943; University of Chicago, 1945-47; M.A., 1971

Read an Excerpt

“One sort of optional thing you might do is to realize there are six seasons instead of four. The poetry of four seasons is all wrong for this part of the planet, and this may explain why we are so depressed so much of the time. I mean, Spring doesn’t feel like Spring a lot of the time, and November is all wrong for Fall and so on. Here is the truth about the seasons: Spring is May and June! What could be springier than May and June? Summer is July and August. Really hot, right? Autumn is September and October. See the pumpkins? Smell those burning leaves. Next comes the season called “Locking.” That is when Nature shuts everything down. November and December aren’t Winter. They’re Locking. Next comes Winter, January and February. Boy! Are they ever cold! What comes next? Not Spring. Unlocking comes next. What else could April be?

“One more optional piece of advice: If you ever have to give a speech, start with a joke, if you know one. For years I have been looking for the best joke in the world. I think I know what it is. I will tell it to you, but have to help me. You have to say, “No,” when I hold my hand like this. All right? Don’t let me down.

“Do you know why cream is so much more expensive than milk?

“AUDIENCE: No.

"It is because the cows hate to squat on those little bottles.”

Table of Contents

Introduction xi

Baccalaureate 1

1 What to do When You Have the Power; In the Meantime, Remember to Skylark!

Bennington College, Bennington, Vermont, June 1970 3

2 The Terrible Disease of Loneliness can be Cured!

Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York, May 26, 1974 19

3 Let the Killing Stop

Barnstable High School, Barnstable, Massachusetts, October 23, 1969

4 How to Make Money and Find Love!

Fredonia College, Fredonia, New York, May 20, 1978 53

5 Advice to Graduating Women (That All Men Should Know!)

Agnes Scott College, Decatur, Georgia, May 15, 1999 67

6 How to Have Something Most Billionaires Don't

Rice University, Houston, Texas, October 12, 2001 83

7 How Music Cures Our Ills (And There are Lots of Them)

Eastern Washington University, Spokane, Washington, April 17, 2004 91

8 What the "Ghost Dance" of the Native Americans and the French Painters Who Led the Cubist Movement Have in Common

The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, February 17, 1994 115

9 How I Learned from a Teacher What Artists Do

Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, May 8, 1994 131

10 Don't Forget Where You Come From

Batter University, Indianapolis, Indiana, May 11, 1996 137

11 Why Social Justice does more than Art to Nourish the American Dream

State University of New York at Albany, May 20, 1972 143

12 How to be a Wise Guy or a Wise Girl

Southampton College, Southampton, New York, Jane 7, 1981 159

13 Why You Can't Stop Me from Speaking Ill of Thomas Jefferson

The Indiana Civil Liberties Union (now The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana), Indianapolis, Indiana, September 16, 2000 173

14 Don't Despair if You Never Went to College!.

On receiving the Cart Sandburg Award, Chicago, Illinois, October 12, 2001 185

15 How I Got My First Job as a Reporter and Learned to Write in a Simple, Direct Way, While not Getting a Degree in Anthropology

From An Unsentimenal Education: Writers and Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1995 193

16 Somebody Should Have Told Me Not to Join a Fraternity

"If I Knew Then What I Know Now: Advice to the Class of '94 from Those Who Know Best," Cornell Magazine, May 1994 205

17 The Most Censored Writer of his Time Defends the First Amendment

"The Idea Killers," Playboy Magazine, January 1984 207

18 My Dog Likes Everybody, but Was Not Inspired by Ancient Greece and Rome or the Renaissance

"Why My Dog Is Not a Humanist," The Humanist, November/December 1992 217

Unstuck in Time-Quotes to Ponder 227

Editorial Reviews

"If This Isn’t Nice, What Is? is a spectacular read in its entirety, brimming with Vonnegut’s unflinching convictions and timeless advice to the young." —Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

“Like [that of] his literary ancestor Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut’s crankiness is good-humored and sharp-witted.” —A.O. Scott, New York Times Book Review

"Like so much of Vonnegut's work, these speeches combine absurdist humor, pessimism and countercultural politics, with improbably and disarmingly charming results." —Troy Jollimore, Chicago Tribune's Printers Row Journal

"If This Isn't Nice, What Is? is a blast of pure acid." —Entertainment Weekly

"The material here offers us a slightly different lens, a different window, extending across a wide range of time and geography, from Fredonia College in Fredonia New York in 1978 to Eastern Washington University in Spokane in 2004, and framed by not just Vonnegut’s sense of humor but also of humanity, his faith in our essential decency." —David Ulin, Los Angeles Times

"These delightful scattershot commencement speeches offer fresh clues to what lay behind Kurt Vonnegut's twinkly visage—clues that are well worth celebrating." —Peter Matthiessen

From the Publisher