The Big Trip up Yonder

by Kurt Vonnegut

Overview

If it was good enough for your grandfather, forget it ... it is much too good for anyone else!

Product Details

BN ID:	2940012180858
Publisher:	Sunrise Publishing
Publication date:	03/06/2011
Series:	Sunrise Master Works , #8
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	61 KB

About the Author

American author Kurt Vonnegut combined satiric social commentary and black comedy with surrealist and science fictional elements. His best known works are Player Piano (1952), Cat's Cradle (1963), Slaughterhouse-Five (1969; film, 1972), and Breakfast of Champions (1973). Known for his outspoken political opinions, Vonnegut also produced a host of essays, articles, and short stories. A number of his works have been translated into television or film, and he graced a few of these with cameo appearances. Vonnegut was also a graphic artist, and illustrated a number of his works himself.

Common themes in Vonnegut's work include the dehumanization wrought by technology, as well as by bureaucracy and media indoctrination. Sexuality and violence and the myths that spring up around them are also common themes. While Vonnegut's work has sometimes been criticized for flouting accepted narrative conventions, for "sophomoric simplicity", and for vulgarity, there is no mistaking the passion of his underlying arguments -- for pacifism, for socialist equality, and most of all for the need for common decency. Yet what separates Vonnegut from other social commentators and political do-gooders is that he never seemed compelled to elevate himself above the rest of humanity. He portrayed himself, as he did nearly everyone else (hero or villain), as a dumb schmuck struggling to do his best, despite mispatched mental programming and an unsteady world.

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