And So it Goes

Apr 12, 2012 MJ Nicholls rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: merkins, non-fiction, tortured-artists

A cursory glance at Charles J. Shields’s bibliography shows him to have authored a string of hack profiles ranging from Saddam Hussein to J.K. Rowling, plus books on sexual disorders, Uruguay and Vladimir Putin. Clearly this is the man to write the first full-length biography of bouffant satirical demigod Kurt Vonnegut. CLEARLY. Like him or not, he will remain, for time immemorial, the first and only man to have authority from The Master to write a full-length bio (or, at least, a vague thumbs-u...more A cursory glance at Charles J. Shields’s bibliography shows him to have authored a string of hack profiles ranging from Saddam Hussein to J.K. Rowling, plus books on sexual disorders, Uruguay and Vladimir Putin. Clearly this is the man to write the first full-length biography of bouffant satirical demigod Kurt Vonnegut. CLEARLY. Like him or not, he will remain, for time immemorial, the first and only man to have authority from The Master to write a full-length bio (or, at least, a vague thumbs-up from a doddery moribund man who he spoke to twice). But here we are, here it is, so it goes, and so on. Shields has written an extremely workmanlike bio, forgoing any textual trickery or temporal twiddling to present a birth-to-death portrait of the artist as a cranky firecracker, partial Mormon, and counterculture Baal. It zips along nicely. Shields’s own hack background clearly mirrors Vonnegut’s career chasing moolah in the slicks, so any protests on that front are churlish. CHURLISH. He describes well the maelstrom of family in Kurt’s life, and the agents, friends, extra kids and sparring partners.

But there’s one person missing from this bio: Kurt Vonnegut. I see only a shadow walking through these pages. I see his first wife Jane come to life brilliantly—an utterly devoted charmer who never loses faith in Kurt’s ability to become a great writer, who Kurt breezily betrays once his career picks up traction. His children swirl in and out the novel, tormented and amused at this cartoon grump lurking in his office doorway trying to write a novel with very short chapters. This isn’t necessarily a criticism—Kurt was deeply insecure and lacking identity. His shrewd businessman’s instincts dominated much of his writing life—the famous perm and moustache was cultivated to impress his readership following Slaughterhouse-Five’s huge success. His advice as a writing teacher was geared towards selling stories for vanishing magazine markets. He clearly relished his financial freedom after a long decade grafting largely for financial success. He was a free enterprise capitalist, not a socialist dreamer.

There are many unpleasant revelations in this book, mostly Kurt’s treatment of women: not impressive. Embarrassing examples abound, including his on-campus sexism and philandering in the sixties, though this is hardly surprising given the middle-aged males dominating the writing courses at the time. Basically, Kurt was an asshole. He acknowledges this many times in interviews and his books. He was an overgrown baby who wanted status and respect as an author, forever insecure about his place in the pantheon. Anyway: none of this matters, really. We have the books. Shields isn’t too hot on the canon, offering slim synopses and capsule summaries where meatier examinations might have been welcome for the devotee. He is also overly harsh about a number of his works, lingering on the critically popular ones. More drooling devotion might have been welcome.

Although meticulously compiled from limited scraps, the book is frustrating since we don’t get a better sense of Vonnegut outside his autobiographical works. Perhaps that’s the point: Kurt lived a Jackson Pollock life, as anarchic and shambling as his novels, and ultimately he was a product of depression-era America, the 30s and 40s, and remained rooted to these beginnings all his life . . . which is hardly a flaw. Learning how typically writerly he was “humanises” the man behind the novels, and does little to change our opinion of his work. His last ten years of life, sadly, were spent with Jill Krementz, whose behaviour towards her eighty-year-old spouse is not what one might term “affectionate.” Kurt really needed Jane in his life in his dotage, the poor sap. So: a solid bio with a throwaway appendix, badly endnoted.
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Apr 12, 2013 Richard rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review of the OUTSTANDING book has been revised and can now be found at Expendable Mudge Muses Aloud!

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Mar 31, 2013 Zahir rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shields does a very good job researching and humanizing Vonnegut. Vonnegut himself is my favorite author, whose insights I couldn't get enough of. What Shields does is humanize him.

Most of Vonnegut's works have had some degree of autobiographical content in them, and Shields' account of Vonnegut's life and relationships is nothing new. But what Shields does exceptionally well is talk about it objectively, and the impact those events had on Vonnegut himself, and how that impacted his novels and...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Danny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: library-book, listened-to, non-fiction

Perhaps people familiar with Kurt Vonnegut's media persona will not need a book that serves to humanize the curmudgeonly author. But for people like me, who only know him through reading a few of his books, this is a fascinating, if depressing, story. It paints a picture of a man scrambling and grasping for respect in a field that often doesn't seem inclined to provide it. It shines a light onto a troubled family life and personal grievances, both justified and not. It examines two marriages tha...more

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Dec 27, 2011 Adam Floridia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: vonnegut, 5-star-books

As someone who conceitedly fancies himself a Vonnegut scholar, I like to think that I’m an expert on all things Vonnegut. Every time I read a new book of KV criticism, I huff and sneer demeaningly thinking, “Pfff, I could write that because I’m so great; I just haven't done it yet.” Shields' biography is what I could only dream of writing. So, Charles J. Shields, my hat is off to you: kudos for putting me in my place.

The depth and breadth of research that went into this is staggering. I read mo...more As someone who conceitedly fancies himself a Vonnegut scholar, I like to think that I’m an expert on all things Vonnegut. Every time I read a new book of KV criticism, I huff and sneer demeaningly thinking, “Pfff, I could write that because I’m so great; I just haven't done it yet.” Shields' biography is what I could only dream of writing. So, Charles J. Shields, my hat is off to you: kudos for putting me in my place.

The depth and breadth of research that went into this is staggering. I read more endnotes (just because I enjoyed seeing where each Vonnegut tidbit came from) than I did in Infinite Jest. Shields secured access to Vonnegut’s personal collection of correspondences and interviewed a whole slew of his family members, friends and former acquaintances. Every biography I read will forever be weighed against Boyd’s two volume Nabokov masterpieces, works that I never expect anything to counterbalance; this comes very, very close. The only thing that is missing is the in-depth criticism of each Vonnegut novel; however, that’s not a requisite for a biography, and the fact that this focuses on Vonnegut “the man” is just fine.

Vonnegut “the man” and Vonnegut “the fictional character” are so often viewed as the same person, and Shields does a wonderful job addressing this. In fact, this was the most disappointing aspect of the book for me. Reading about the real Kurt Vonnegut, I often felt like the little boy at the end of Joyce’s “Araby”: disappointed, disillusioned. Kurt does not seem like he was a very good father. He seems to have been an even worse husband. Jane seems to have supported him just like Vera supported Vladimir; however, Kurt, childishly, depended on her for everything, acted like a self-centered patriarch, and had multiple affairs—even cheating on one mistress with another. So many of the noble principles espoused in his writings prove to be nothing more than ideals. That’s totally fine, but learning that my hero couldn’t exactly live up to those ideals is saddening. “[Kurt] had made choices, consciously or unconsciously, that had created multiple and even contradictory identities. He was a counterculture hero, a guru, and a leftist to his fans; a wealthy investor to his broker; a champion of family and community and yet a distant father; a man who had left his ‘child-centered’ home to save his sanity, but then married a younger woman who was leading him into fatherhood again; a satirist of American life but feeding at the trough of celebrity up to his ears” (351). This book just pulled back the curtain on my hero and made me realize the very lesson he gave his creative writing class at Harvard, “‘people are not wholly bad. People are not wholly good either. Try not create characters in terms that are absolute—real people aren’t like that’” (277). This book made me recognize that my hero was only human. (There is, perhaps, one exception to the above rule: Jill Krementz, Kurt’s second wife, really does seem like a complete “cunt,” to use the poignant word that Nanny told me Kurt had once used to describe her.)

Perhaps because the “characters” in this biography were so human, I actually shed a tear when there was family discord or when someone, who has been dead for ten or twenty or fifty years, "died." The fact that I do know what members of the Vonnegut clan have passed means that, for me to be so affected by their passings, Shields really did make them come to life again in this biography.

Phenomenal biography!

p.s. "To re-create how he liked to work...He posted his grandchildren's drawings on the refrigerator door, tacked a few drawings of his own to the walls, and displayed in the kitchen a bumper sticker quoting him: YOUR PLANET'S IMMUNE SYSTEM/IS TRYING TO GET RID OF YOU" (409).

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That very bumper sticker, the one formerly displayed in his kitchen, is now on my "Kurt Vonnegut Bookshelf" by my desk. :-)
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Apr 12, 2012 Moira Russell added it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook, on-the-kindle, 2012-50-new-books-challenge

Yes, that was pretty terrible, although less awful than most biographies of female writers (much less prurient description of Vonnegut's love life, for one thing). It was also unsettling how we were just supposed to unquestioningly accept Vonnegut's second wife as a cast-iron bitch, probably because she chose not to cooperate with the biographer (see: Ted Hughes, Sonia Orwell, &c &c). I did enjoy learning totally useless facts about Vonnegut, such as his favourite program being Law and O...more

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Feb 26, 2012 Mark rated it 4 of 5 stars

As I read And So It Goes, I thought I was going to regret having done so. It's a sobering experience to discover someone I admire has feet of clay. There is no doubt that Kurt Vonnegut was a deeply flawed and troubled person, quick to anger, a user of those who thought they could trust him, a philanderer and a distant father. But given the unbearable circumstances of his life, a mother who committed suicide, a beloved sister dying young of cancer and being a not only a prisoner of war but being...more

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Nov 09, 2012 Louise rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, writers

There is an art to blending research with engaging prose to create a page turning biography. Charles Shields has that talent. His presentation keeps the narrative moving and he holds the reader from cover to cover.

Unfortunately for Vonnegut fans, they will not like everything they read. His life is not about kindness, wealth distribution or any other topic of his novels. He seems to be barely getting through the day. Vonnegut's treatment of his first wife Jane was so appalling that you almost ap...more There is an art to blending research with engaging prose to create a page turning biography. Charles Shields has that talent. His presentation keeps the narrative moving and he holds the reader from cover to cover.

Unfortunately for Vonnegut fans, they will not like everything they read. His life is not about kindness, wealth distribution or any other topic of his novels. He seems to be barely getting through the day. Vonnegut's treatment of his first wife Jane was so appalling that you almost applaud for the misery Jill Krementz dished out (could she really have been THIS bad?). At the end you feel sorry for his helplessness. He's a chain smoker, and while it's not directly stated, you can see the alcohol working in the cigarette burns on his clothing, the fire in his NYC brownstone... he seems pathetic at the end.

Shields takes the reader through the pluses and minuses of Vonnegut's Midwestern childhood, where the demise of the family's wealth and position weighed heavily on his emotionally withholding mother. His family has a fashionable home. There are great holidays at a lake. While he has an eccentric, achieving family to help him along, he was pushed into a career path determined by this brother. From this beginning, becomes a GI (not an officer as his family would have liked) and pretty quickly becomes a POW and lives under abominable coonditions. His marriage may have been to his second choice partner... hers too... but if its a frying pan for him, he jumps into the proverbial fire... and so it goes....

All the while you're engrossed in his life, Vonnegut is writing away and Shields shows how his content was molded from people and events you are reading about. Was Vonnegut an experimental writer or a hack? Was he a sci-fi writer or is a social commentator? Did he make a breakthrough in American fiction? Has been unduly excluded from awards, directories, etc. as he claims? None of these questions are answered, but through reading this book, you understand why they have been asked.

This is well researched (plenty of documentation for fact checkers) and highly readable. At the same time it gives a literary survey of Vonnegut's work.(less)

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Nov 06, 2012 Doug Clark rated it 4 of 5 stars

This past August, I finished Charles J. Shields' fascinating biography of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life. This makes the second book I've read entitled And So It Goes. The other, written by TV journalist Linda Ellerbee (who I first starting watching on NBC's late night news program, NBC Overnight) was a wonderful memoir of her adventures in television journalism. Ellerbee, a cancer survivor, has since received acclaim for her work with children. Anyway, the phrase, "An...more This past August, I finished Charles J. Shields' fascinating biography of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life. This makes the second book I've read entitled And So It Goes. The other, written by TV journalist Linda Ellerbee (who I first starting watching on NBC's late night news program, NBC Overnight) was a wonderful memoir of her adventures in television journalism. Ellerbee, a cancer survivor, has since received acclaim for her work with children. Anyway, the phrase, "And so it goes" was her sign-off and I am sure she borrowed it from Vonnegut.

I first became acquainted with Vonnegut's novels in the early 1980s and, enjoying them, promptly read everything I could find by him. His books were written with a simplicity of language that made them easy to read but they often dealt with difficult issues of our times. His best known book, Slaughterhouse-Five, is a vivid surrealistic picture of the Dresden fire-bombing in WWII that Vonnegut himself survived as a prisoner of war. The title came from the meat locker he and the other prisoners were holed up in during the Allied bombing. I must confess that having read nearly all of Vonnegut's works over the years, I don't have a lot of memory of what they were about. I just know that I was always excited when a new one came out and read it as soon as I could. I was never disappointed. I also loved his cameo in the Rodney Dangerfield movie, Back to School (1986).

Shields, the author of a well-received biography of Harper Lee (Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee), has written a very good biography of Vonnegut. The book does not spare Vonnegut of criticism, especially in his homelife. My major response after finishing the biography was that Vonnegut was not a happy man, even with his eventual success. Shields has done a lot of research and the notes at the end of the book clearly shows that research. The one glaring omission is that Shields was unable to talk to Vonnegut's wife, Jill Krementz. Her perspective about Vonnegut's later life would have been valuable. What Shields does write about her is generally unfavorable. I found the book quite good and would recommend it to any Vonnegut fans. Vonnegut, in conclusion, seems to be the older, not necessarily more mature or wiser, curmudgeonly uncle many of us have in our families.
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Sep 03, 2012 Jenny Brown rated it 4 of 5 stars

A well written book that makes it 100% clear that, whatever his talents as a writer, Kurt Vonnegut was a thoroughly rotten human being who rewarded anyone who helped or supported him with a kick in the pants.

I found nothing to admire in his character as portrayed here, and this account reminded me of just how selfish and destructive the males of the 1950s and '60s were, demanding that their wives give up everything for them, as Vonnegut's did, while feeling justified in pursuing adulterous affa...more A well written book that makes it 100% clear that, whatever his talents as a writer, Kurt Vonnegut was a thoroughly rotten human being who rewarded anyone who helped or supported him with a kick in the pants.

I found nothing to admire in his character as portrayed here, and this account reminded me of just how selfish and destructive the males of the 1950s and '60s were, demanding that their wives give up everything for them, as Vonnegut's did, while feeling justified in pursuing adulterous affairs, often with people with whom there was a great inequality of power, like their students.

As Shields tells the story, Vonnegut ended up with the woman he deserved--one even more selfish, cruel, and social climbing than he was. Sadly, she seems to have talked him out of sharing with his children and the nephews he raised the wealth that poured in after he'd (somewhat fraudulently) established himself as the spokesperson for a younger, kinder, generation.

I have no way of knowing if Vonnegut was really as spoiled and selfish an exploiter as he is portrayed in this biography. If he was, it should be a warning to all women not to fall for any man who uses his purported gifts as a writer to suppress and oppress others. I know several equally good writers--women writers, of course--who manage to write at the same pace and with the same skill as Vonnegut without being waited on hand and foot as he was and without the threats, tantrums, and affairs that Vonnegut (and most male writers of his generation) believed were a necessary part of the [male] writing life.

They weren't, and I have to say that on closing this book I found myself very glad that the last of the supposed "greatest generation" were gone or close to it, because I'm old enough to remember those men in their prime. For the women whose lives they infested--and the pretty young girls they preyed on--all too many of them were anything but great. Thank goodness that we have come to the point a generation later where women at least have some clue that they need not give up their entire lives to serve some male egoist's destiny!

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Aug 14, 2012 Brian Sweany rated it 5 of 5 stars

On April 11, 2007, 10 days before my 36th birthday, Kurt Vonnegut died after suffering brain injuries in a fall. He was 84 years old. When I heard the news I left my northeastern Indianapolis suburban home--a bright-white vinyl-clad house with manicured flower beds and a too-perfectly shorn lawn I just know Vonnegut would have hated--and drove downtown to the corner of 34th and Meridian. I parked my car, stood in front of Vonnegut's alma mater Shortridge High School, and read from my tattered an...more On April 11, 2007, 10 days before my 36th birthday, Kurt Vonnegut died after suffering brain injuries in a fall. He was 84 years old. When I heard the news I left my northeastern Indianapolis suburban home--a bright-white vinyl-clad house with manicured flower beds and a too-perfectly shorn lawn I just know Vonnegut would have hated--and drove downtown to the corner of 34th and Meridian. I parked my car, stood in front of Vonnegut's alma mater Shortridge High School, and read from my tattered and stained copy of SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE:

American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.

The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.

When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.

The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.

For those unfamiliar with the passage, the book's hero Billy Pilgrim is in the midst of becoming "unstuck in time" and is watching a war movie in reverse. Although disguised by an absurdest, sci-fi pretext, no passage in any other Vonnegut book, no interview with the master himself, ever quite so succinctly captured his boundless, abiding humanism. That is, until I read Charles' Shields' biography AND SO IT GOES.

In 2006 Shields asked Vonnegut to endorse a planned biography. The first response was of course "No," followed by a complimentary but no doubt canned response from Vonnegut, who I'm guessing had received that inquiry once or twice in his life. But Shields, propelled by a passion for his subject, not to mention nearly five years into his research, wrote again and this time, Vonnegut said, OK."

For the next year--a year that ended up being Vonnegut’s last--Charles Shields had access to Kurt Vonnegut and the 1,500 personal letters to or from Vonnegut that had been presumed lost. What emerges from this source material is an authentic, nearly miraculous portrait of Vonnegut's 50-year evolution as a writer, father, struggling freelancer, suddenly famous man, divorced parent, and divorced husband. I would argue that AND SO IT GOES--amazingly, the first and only comprehensive biography of Vonnegut--is nothing less than the greatest contribution to the biography canon in this century.

And Jane Vonnegut Yarmolinsky, God rest your soul, because you were a saint on Earth. Jill Krementz, eh, not so much.

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May 23, 2012 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars

In my late tweens-early teens, round about 1975-1976 or so I guess, I read every Kurt Vonnegut book then in print, from Player Piano to Slapstick (my "whoa..." stoner favorites were Sirens of Titan and Cat's Cradle), pretty much back to back to back to etc. I don't think I've read anything by Vonnegut since then (except that commencement address that everyone circulates that he didn't actually write), but he obviously made enough of an impression that I was psyched for And So It Goes, Charles Sh...more

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Apr 23, 2012 Terry rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I could swear I already added this/reviewed it, but maybe I only did so in my head. I did NOT liked Shileds' other biography, Mockingbird; I thought this was much better-written and except for the opening pages, Shields does keep the attention on Vonnegut, and not himself. The story of how Vonnegut became a writer is...generally interesting, especially in light of post-World War II America. But the story of Vonnegut the man is kind of depressing, since he seems to have been a generally unhappy m...more

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Apr 18, 2012 Eric rated it 3 of 5 stars

When I was in high school I randomly picked up a copy of The Sirens of Titan that someone had left in the track team locker room. To say that it changed my life might be an overstatement, but it certainly helped crystallize many of my teenage ideas into semi-coherent beliefs. Everything was there: anti-authoritarianism, atheism, absurdity, and loads and loads of high irony.

I read a lot more of Vonnegut in high school and then, like many of his readers, moved on. So when I picked up this biograph...more

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Feb 29, 2012 Jill Furedy rated it 3 of 5 stars

I found this to be a fairly straight forward biography, and the author stayed out of the narrative for the most part, so I don't have a strong opinion of it. There were places I wanted more info (what did happen on Loree's last visit? What did Jill's friends or family think of their relationship since his side were so clearly against it...and she won't talk!), but there was a lot if ground covered. I was sorry the biographer didn't get to spend more time with Kurt, but then again he wasn't a hap...more

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Feb 10, 2012 False Millennium rated it 3 of 5 stars

I discovered and read Vonnegut in my college years. I even passed on his name later to then college students who enjoyed him. I read a book, maybe even one of his later ones, where he expressed a fear that the young would be his only readership; i.e. he wouldn't be a writer of consequence. I think for any artist it is hard to realize how ever many acclaims you received in life, it may be all for nought in the big picture.

Back when Vonnegut was still married (and not knowing much about him,) I ha...more I discovered and read Vonnegut in my college years. I even passed on his name later to then college students who enjoyed him. I read a book, maybe even one of his later ones, where he expressed a fear that the young would be his only readership; i.e. he wouldn't be a writer of consequence. I think for any artist it is hard to realize how ever many acclaims you received in life, it may be all for nought in the big picture.

Back when Vonnegut was still married (and not knowing much about him,) I had a huge respect that he had married his kindergarten sweetheart and was still married to her. How little I knew. Sadly, he turned out to be a real stinker: selfish, narcisstic, mean-spirited, whiney. He treated his wife poorly, and his children. He let himself get taken over by a chimera of a last wife who was abusive to him. It's amazing, just from my own experience, witnessing so many older people making such foolish decisions late in life...and they say with age comes with wisdom. Not in my experiences.

I will write about one moment I shared with Vonnegut. Whatever book I was reading where he expressed that fear of being known later, he also wrote about his wife's death. She was cremated and her ashes were scattered at the end of Scudder Lane in West Barnstable, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, and while I was reading about his years of living on the Cape, the book I was reading came from the oldest library in America, just blocks from that house and that harbor, and I was just blocks away in another historic house, propped up in an antique bed reading those passages. It was...eerie.

Let me quote what he told his wife when she worried about "the time to leave the planet."I told her on the telephone," Vonnegut wrote, "that a sunburned, raffish, bored but not unhappy ten-year old boy who we did not know, would be standing on the gravel-slope of the boat-launching ramp at the foot of Scudder's Lane. He would gaze out at nothing in particular, birds, boats, or whatever, in the harbor of Barnstable, Cape Cod...I told Jane that this boy, with nothing better to do, would pick up a stone, as boys will. He would arc it over the harbor. When the stone hit the water, she would die."

Reading those words, in a house that had been a sea captain's house, in a house that had been a nunnery and school, in a room that had been used for Catholic Mass, where my clothes hung where priest's vestments had hung, wind rattling at the old poorly fitted windows, just blocks from Scudder Lane...it still haunts me.(less)

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Jan 16, 2012 Danny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: listened-to, non-fiction

Perhaps people familiar with Kurt Vonnegut's media persona will not need a book that serves to humanize the curmudgeonly author. But for people like me, who only know him through reading a few of his books, this is a fascinating, if depressing, story. It paints a picture of a man scrambling and grasping for respect in a field that often doesn't seem inclined to provide it. It shines a light onto a troubled family life and personal grievances, both justified and not. It examines two marriages tha...more

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Dec 13, 2011 Tony rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography

AND SO IT GOES. KURT VONNEGUT: A Life. (2011). Charles J. Shields. ****.
I was fortunate enough to attend one of Vonnegut’s speaking engagements in Sacramento in the late 1990s, but was confused by his presentation. He tended to ramble on from subject to subject, but managed to extract as much humor as possible from each scenario. His life – as depicted in this biography – seemed to be much the same as his talk. Like most people, I “discovered” Vonnegut when “Slaughterhouse 5” was released, and...more AND SO IT GOES. KURT VONNEGUT: A Life. (2011). Charles J. Shields. ****.
I was fortunate enough to attend one of Vonnegut’s speaking engagements in Sacramento in the late 1990s, but was confused by his presentation. He tended to ramble on from subject to subject, but managed to extract as much humor as possible from each scenario. His life – as depicted in this biography – seemed to be much the same as his talk. Like most people, I “discovered” Vonnegut when “Slaughterhouse 5” was released, and became a big follower of his thereafter. My collection of his books is noteworthy and is now part of my son’s library. It’s also part of his inheritance! This biography by Shields, whose previous work was, “Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee,” is well written and lively in its approach to Vonnegut’s output. He was, from his earliest days, driven to be a writer, although he took a tortuous path to finally get there. In spite of his serious effort to study the publishing market and what the readers wanted, he still ended up turning out stories and novels that were uniquely his. The comments that readers and critics did not understand him were obviously right on until his breakthrough novel. He was born in Indianapolis and attended Cornell and the University of Chicago for a while, but never received his degree. Later in life, when he had a chance to teach at Harvard and needed a degree, he ultimately finished his Masters at Chicago by submitting – and having approved – one of his early novels as his thesis. That story of how he brought it off is one of the highlights of the book. He never knew what he wanted to be when he grew up, other than being a writer. The hard facts of life forced him to take on jobs that paid him money so he could support himself and his first wife, but all the jobs were simply grist for his fiction mill. He landed a job at General Electric with the help of his older brother, a scientist by training. Vonnegut ended up as a PR guy for the company, writing material that boosted the works and developments of the company. He could only stand the discipline for so long, however, and ultimately took off on his own. He was appealing to women, and managed to screw up his life several times through his extramarital affairs. Early on, his writings were classified as science fiction, a term that really doesn’t fit his works – although there is usually science and extraterrestial presence in his books. “...black humorist [was] a term often applied to him, [but] Vonnegut [wasn’t] a black humorist and [wouldn’t] become one. A black humorist is a nihilist: existence is meaningless and chaotic...a better description for Vonnegut’s mode [was] comic-didactic.” “As the narrator of “Deadeye Dick” says resignedly, ‘We all see our lives as stories...If a person survives an ordinary span of sixty years or more, there is every chance that his or her life as a shapely story has ended, and all that remains to be experienced is epilogue. Life is not over, but the story is.” Recommended.
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Dec 08, 2011 Dan rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 06, 2011 Gail rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, noteworthy-nonfiction

Having read most of Kurt Vonnegut's books while I was in high school and college, I never really thought of the man behind the writings. The biography of him by Charles J. Shields brought Vonnegut to the surface. The writing is superb and gives you a bird's-eye view of what made him tick. He certainly was a contradiction between how he appeared to his adoring young (college-aged)fans with what his books expressed to them and then what was going on in his personal life with his family.
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Dec 02, 2011 Mal Warwick rated it 5 of 5 stars

And So It Goes: The sad life of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The face that peers out at you from the cover is immeasurably sad. It’s the face of a man in middle age weighed down by lifetimes of tragedy. The man — one of the most remarkable novelists of the 20th century — is Kurt Vonnegut, known throughout much of his adult life as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

In And So It Goes, Charles J. Shields plumbs the depths of Vonnegut’s sadness. He began work shortly before Vonnegut’s death in 2006 and conducted lengthy inter...more And So It Goes: The sad life of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The face that peers out at you from the cover is immeasurably sad. It’s the face of a man in middle age weighed down by lifetimes of tragedy. The man — one of the most remarkable novelists of the 20th century — is Kurt Vonnegut, known throughout much of his adult life as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

In And So It Goes, Charles J. Shields plumbs the depths of Vonnegut’s sadness. He began work shortly before Vonnegut’s death in 2006 and conducted lengthy interviews with his children, his first wife, contemporary writers, business associates, and neighbors. The intimacy and detail of the book is remarkable: a whole man emerges from its pages.

Vonnegut struggled through the first four decades of his long life — he died at 83 — then gradually gained readers through the 1960s until, with the publication of Slaughterhouse-Five in 1969, he became famous “overnight” as he neared the age of 50. After years of eating cereal for dinner and scraping for pennies selling what he regarded as hack stories for the popular magazines of the 1950s and 1960s, he and his wife suddenly found themselves rich as royalties poured in from reprints of his earlier work and as each succeeding book, good or bad, lingered on the best-seller lists for week after week.

Like the best of his novels — Cat’s Cradle, published in 1953, as well as Slaughterhouse-Five — Vonnegut was deceptively complex. In public, Vonnegut affected the manner, even for a time the moustache and the white suit, of his literary hero, Mark Twain. Like Twain, he was folksy and often screamingly funny. A rigid moralist and a plain-spoken opponent of war and defender of freedom of speech, he was idolized by a generation of students and was one of the most popular speakers on college campuses throughout the country during the 1970s and 1980s. In public appearances, Vonnegut generally came across as avuncular, considerate, and witty, often leaving audiences gasping from laughter. At the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop, he proved himself to be a popular and talented teacher.

The man himself, however, though consistently witty throughout his life, bore little other resemblance to his long-time public image. He treated his long-time first wife, Jane, with undisguised contempt, ignored his children and frightened their friends, betrayed his own friends by summarily ending decades-long business relationships, and, in his final years, became intolerably grouchy.

Reflecting the truism that “what goes around comes around,” Vonnegut’s childhood was deeply troubled. His mother, having been raised in luxury and dependent on servants for even the most mundane tasks, was emotionally upended by the Crash of 1929, when the family’s circumstances were sharply reduced. She spent the rest of her life sleeping for days on end and moping about the house, finally killing herself when Kurt was just 21 — on Mother’s Day, 1944. His feckless father, a talented engineer trapped in life as an architect like his brilliant father, paid little attention to Kurt as a child and almost never encouraged him in any way. All the family’s attention was fastened on Kurt’s older brother, Bernard, a gifted scientist who later in life discovered the technique of cloud-seeding to induce rain. When Kurt announced his interest in pursuing studies in the arts, Bernard insisted that he enroll at Cornell to study science, and the younger brother was powerless to resist. He lasted two years there and, later, pursued an anthropology degree at the University of Chicago with a similar lack of success. (Years later, he persuaded the Chicago Anthropology Department to accept his novel Cat’s Cradle in lieu of a thesis and was awarded an M.A.)

Though tragedy in other forms continued to dog Vonnegut in later years, one event stands out as central to his character and his career: the fire-bombing of Dresden in 1945. Vonnegut had enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army the year before and, as his luck would have it, his unit was eventually sent to the Western Front in Europe — positioned at the farthest-forward salient in the Allied lines. Shortly afterward, the Germans attacked in what became known as the Battle of the Bulge. Vonnegut and his buddies were quickly taken prisoner along with thousands of other Americans and marched overland to POW camps in Germany. Eventually, Vonnegut and a small number of his fellow prisoners were taken into Dresden and housed in a old slaughterhouse– very shortly before the horrific fire-bombing attack that killed more than 60,000 civilians. The Americans survived by hiding in a basement. They were put to work once the attack had ended — collecting and stacking corpses.

Is it any wonder why Kurt Vonnegut was cranky? Naturally, none of what he endured can excuse his bad behavior. But it certainly does begin to explain the current of profound sadness that ran throughout Vonnegut’s life.

So it goes.

(From www.malwarwickonbooks.com)(less)

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Feb 05, 2012 Dann LaGratta rated it 1 of 5 stars

I just finished And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut a Life by Charles Shields. This could easily be one of the most jilted half-assed biographies I've ever read. Shields opens the book with his desperation to get Vonnegut to allow him to be his biographer and allow him to write his book. Kurt initially refuses the request and then eventually allows it. Shortly after, Kurt Vonnegut passed away.

The major problem in this book though is that Shields appears to hate Kurt Vonnegut. He seems like a man who h...more I just finished And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut a Life by Charles Shields. This could easily be one of the most jilted half-assed biographies I've ever read. Shields opens the book with his desperation to get Vonnegut to allow him to be his biographer and allow him to write his book. Kurt initially refuses the request and then eventually allows it. Shortly after, Kurt Vonnegut passed away.

The major problem in this book though is that Shields appears to hate Kurt Vonnegut. He seems like a man who had only read Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-5 in high school and then had to suffer through the rest of his work after getting the job.

Sourcing is a huge issue in this work. It seems like Shields' main source of quotes seem to come from his ex-wife or his daughter Nannette, who clearly had issues with her father. The effect it creates is Sheilds comes acrossed looking like a jilted lover himself.

A biography should have the fullest account possible of the subjects life, good and bad. This is what the reader expects from a biography: a full, true account. In the case with authors, a behind the scenes account of what was happening in the author's life also adds a new layer of perspective to an authors work.

Shields instead chose to focus on everything bad about the man. His drinking, rage, infidelities, etc. are all the focus here. The book itself assumes that these are the reasons a reader comes to it. Writing was just a by-product of what Vonnegut did in the few times he wasn't too busy being an egocentric prick to pass some time.

Shields even go so far as to make his own psychological evaluations of everything from KV's childhood to old age.

He did a cut and paste of a Salon.com article in which Peter Fonda claims that Kurt Vonnegut reached in his desk and pulled out a joint. This part of the book was troubling to me so I looked it up. The quote was there alright. Here's why this troubles me though... In "Cold Turkey" an essay that was published in 2004 he says he has only smoked marijuana once in his lifetime with the Grateful Dead. Why would Kurt lie? Especially once we consider that Peter Fonda's quote came from his book in 1969? Given the popularity of other "Leftist" authors of the time like Hunter Thompson and Jack Kerouac, who would care about his pot usage in 2004? Maybe "Cold Turkey" wasn't on Shields' reading list. Shields also then cuts out the salon.com article which ended with "What a wonderful family…" it's fairly obvious why that part was left out though... it goes against his making Vonnegut look like an asshole vibe which he continues the next paragraph.

The worst part of all this is now it'll be another few years before someone else tries to do a better job.
(less)

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Jun 29, 2012 Celeste rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is the first biography I've read in a long time, so I'm not really qualified to review the format/writing of the book. But this biography does have a ton of information, which is why I think it took me a little longer to get through. There was just so much to process. The author had access to over 1500 of Vonnegut's personal letters and conducted a multitude of interviews with people Vonnegut had communicated with throughout his life. I now know so many random facts about Vonnegut. I'm not...more

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Jul 18, 2012 Jason Sanford rated it 3 of 5 stars

For an expanded version of this review, please go here.

A fascinating examination of Vonnegut, which is both a quick read and enjoyable. While Vonnegut comes off as far less likable in this biography than many of his fans likely imagined, that also appears to be how he was in reality. A must-read for any fans of Vonnegut or anyone who wants to learn more about one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century.

I have two major issues with biography. First, Vonnegut's World War II ye...more For an expanded version of this review, please go here.

A fascinating examination of Vonnegut, which is both a quick read and enjoyable. While Vonnegut comes off as far less likable in this biography than many of his fans likely imagined, that also appears to be how he was in reality. A must-read for any fans of Vonnegut or anyone who wants to learn more about one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century.

I have two major issues with biography. First, Vonnegut's World War II years are not explored in as much depth as required. Since that experience rippled throughout Vonnegut's life--and also resulted in Vonnegut's most famous book, Slaughterhouse-Five--it should have been covered in much more detail.

Second, Shields' attitude toward the science fiction genre is extremely demeaning and off-putting. Yes, Vonnegut had a love-hate relationship with SF and didn't want his writing dismissed by placing him in the genre box. But Shields appears to not only have internalized this attitude but taken it to an extreme. Almost ever single reference in the book to a SF author or the genre is derogatory or given short shrift.

For example, only a single page is given to Theodore Sturgeon, who was the inspiration for Vonnegut's most famous character Kilgore Trout. That single page describes a dinner shared by the two authors, where Sturgeon attempts a backward flip but falls on his knees. In Shields' account, Sturgeon's attempt is played for laughs only, as a clown who showed Vonnegut what could happen to his writing career if he didn't break out of the damned box of SF fiction.

But if you read Vonnegut's original account of the dinner, which he shared in his 1999 introduction to A Saucer of Loneliness: Volume VII: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, it's obvious that this isn't how Vonnegut saw Sturgeon. Vonnegut said Sturgeon was the victim of a "hate crime then commonly practiced by the American literary establishment"--genreism, or the dismissal of any writer who wrote SF.

Vonnegut closes his account of that dinner by describing Sturgeon as one of the best writers in America. The fact that Shields referenced this particular episode but missed Vonnegut's larger point about Sturgeon leaves me wondering what else Shields is missing due to his biased view of SF. But despite this, his book is the first detailed biography of Vonnegut and well worth reading.(less)

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Jan 19, 2012 Nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: wwii, 1960-s-history, biography

In the spring of 1967, Kurt Vonnegut spoke at Reed College where I was freshman. I attended his lecture which I don't remember. I also dropped in on a group discussion he held in the common area of my dorm. He hooked me there. Mainly Vonnegut talked about his struggle to write a book about the firebombing of Dresden. I was surprised to learn of this event and quite impressed with Mr. Vonnegut. When the book he was working on (Slaughterhouse Five) was published, it was not the book I expected but...more

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Apr 28, 2012 Lucy Furr rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography, first-reads

I received this book through Good Reads First Reads.

I should probably start this off by saying that I haven't read much Vonnegut (yet). I've read Slaughterhouse-Five (twice; once in high school, and the other time not too long ago) and Breakfast of Champions (at my boyfriends insistence, for which I'm glad) and several of his short stories, and I've enjoyed them all, but I've got such a huge to read list (who doesn't?) and its taking me time to get around to all of his works. I knew very little...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Derek Baldwin rated it 4 of 5 stars

A fuller version of this review appears here.

I'll preface what might seem a harsh review by saying straight-off that this is a well-written and engrossing book and I recommend it to anyone with an interest in Kurt Vonnegut's life. I would add "...and work" but I think that would be going too far: a real weakness of this biography is a severe lack of appreciation for Vonnegut's actual writing.

It's clear to anyone who reads Vonnegut's books - and I have read all of them at least once - that he nev...more

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Apr 21, 2013 David Hilton rated it 3 of 5 stars

Kurt Vonnegut's life is fascinating, at least for KV nerdos like me and those who even surpass me on the freak-o-scale. Apparently there are a lot of us out there.

Some have written that this book spoiled their appetite for a Vonneguttian feast as the image shown here is of a spoiled and frankly stupid young man who matures into a spoiled and grumpy old codger. Vonnegut dissed all those who pulled him to success despite himself and continued to make astoundingly bad choices right up to the end. H...more Kurt Vonnegut's life is fascinating, at least for KV nerdos like me and those who even surpass me on the freak-o-scale. Apparently there are a lot of us out there.

Some have written that this book spoiled their appetite for a Vonneguttian feast as the image shown here is of a spoiled and frankly stupid young man who matures into a spoiled and grumpy old codger. Vonnegut dissed all those who pulled him to success despite himself and continued to make astoundingly bad choices right up to the end. His family learned to love him and mostly forgave Kurt for being a terrible father, husband, and friend. Some of his colleagues and friends, understandably, did not. All this didn't turn me off; instead learning more increased my desire to gorge, to examine/re-examine the jewels cut from such an ugly process.

I especially want to read, "Venus on the Half-Shell" by "Kilgore Trout". I love the story behind it. A little known author of pulpy Trout-style sexy sci-fi, Philip Jose Farmer, asked Vonnegut if he could publish a novel under Trout's pseudonym. It was a weak moment for KV - he was actually happy (it was almost as if he didn't want to be happy for fear that happiness would spoil his writing). Kurt said okay, and the book came out soon after. The public loved it, a fun story that really seemed like Vonnegut had written it, while also spoofing his earlier works. It seemed like proof to Vonnegut could laugh at himself. Instead, KV was livid and refused to let Farmer publish any further books as Kilgore Trout.

Charles Shield's writing is uneven, occasionally varying tense for no clear purpose and jimmying 25 cent words like tendentious and phrases like "la belle dame sans merci" into sentences where simpler words and expressions would do. Still, the book moves at a nice clip and every fact is clearly footnoted. Great effort went into the construction and I'm grateful to have be able to read it.

One more funny story. Vonnegut's last novel, "Timequake", was a critical disaster after which he said he was through writing. After completing "A Man Without A Country" several years later, he was asked why he had gone back on his promise to retire. "Well, I had hoped to be dead." Typical dry, revealing wit.(less)

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Jan 14, 2012 Lynn Pribus rated it 4 of 5 stars

I don't usually read biographies, but this got a good writeup and I've read a lot of Vonnegut. An incredibly detailed book with more than 50 pages of single-spaced, small-font attributions to letters, interviews, comments, books, articles, etc. Also very long. There is clearly no room for anyone else to write another.

He did not have permission at first, but then Vonnegut agreed. In fact, they were together for an interview very close to Vonnegut's death.

A basically unhappy man, involved with se...more

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Jan 04, 2012 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

Biographies are written with one aim: to contextualize a noteworthy person within his or her own life beyond the limits of the works or deeds that make them noteworthy. We read them because we want to know what humanizes the subject, what events in their life led to their acts or creations. We wish to remove the statesman from the vacuum of politics, the musician from the three minute glimpse we get into him through his songs, the novelist from his characters and plot lines, because we want to k...more Biographies are written with one aim: to contextualize a noteworthy person within his or her own life beyond the limits of the works or deeds that make them noteworthy. We read them because we want to know what humanizes the subject, what events in their life led to their acts or creations. We wish to remove the statesman from the vacuum of politics, the musician from the three minute glimpse we get into him through his songs, the novelist from his characters and plot lines, because we want to know A) how they came to reside atop the pedestal on which they're placed, and B) to connect the dots between the person's life experiences and his achievements. There's an inherent risk in reading biographies, especially ones about our heroes, for while we want them humanized, to come to view them as "real" people to whom we can relate, and in relating somehow become closer to them, it's all too often the case that, just as a lot of real people in our day to day lives disappoint or annoy us, so too can our heroes in real life be quite disconnected from the expectations we have of them based on what we see of their public personas. It's a let down when we read that John Lennon was a razor-tongued asshole a lot of the time, or that Paul McCartney is given to egomania bordering on total narcissism. It takes away some of the glimmer of the holy image we have of Dr. King when we hear that he was given to infidelities even as he led the marches that helped build his reputation. Such is my feeling upon discovering that Kurt Vonnegut the character, the "first-person" narrator of many of his own books, and by extension many of his alter-egos, most notably Kilgore Trout, are often distinctly different than Kurt Vonnegut the man. How is it possible that the man who wrote, using Eliot Rosewater's voice, "God damn it, be nice to everybody!" be the same person who was so isolated from his own family, so much more a father to his own creations than to his own children, both natural born and adopted, that one of his sons had a complete mental breakdown, one of his daughters became anorexic, and his relations with five of the six were perpetually strained? How can the man who was so deeply affected by what he saw in the firebombing of Dresden be the same man who owned stock in Dow Chemical, the sole manufacturer of napalm during the Vietnam War, or the man who said the Earth's epitaph should read "We could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap" own shares in a strip mining operation? Shields' impeccably researched and exceptionally well written biography sheds a light on all the facets of Vonnegut's life, personal and professional, and we find that the human flaws that Vonnegut so adroitly reflected in his body of work were, more often than not, his own. On some level this is disappointing, though on reflection, it shouldn't be that surprising. It was once said of Groucho Marx, who battled depression for much of his life, that he was a comedian who could make everyone laugh but himself. This seems to be largely true of Vonnegut. He was a genius writer, an original stylist and excellent commentator on the human condition, but he was also insecure, immature, and largely self-centered, to an extent that he spent large portions of his life more or less adrift and waiting to see where the next current might carry him. This certainly seems to be the case in his extra-marital relationship with, and later marriage to, photojournalist Jill Krementz. She comes off--at least in Shields' description--as overbearing and manipulative, controlling much of the movement of Vonnegut's later life more for her own ends than his. (In her defense, Shields may have been put-off by her rather fierce resistance to his writing the biography at all, and thereby painted her in a bad light, and anyway Kurt seemed to have no qualms about going along with the decisions she made for them both, whatever the root of their intentions may have been.) Like many highly intelligent types he crafted brilliant works, but he also had a knack for shooting himself in the foot. Where Kurt Vonnegut the character may have been reflective, Kurt Vonnegut the man was often reactionary, which many times led him to have to reverse his tracks to try to numb the wounds his words (both written and spoken) left on others. This is perhaps most pointedly reflected by his ex-wife Jane in one of her notes on his autobiographical collection Palm Sunday, which was published shortly after his second marriage: "Kurt doesn't mind being hurtful, really, although he talks a good game to make you think the opposite. He's fooled most of his public now, for a long time. You see, he doesn't really know what he's doing. He's really very innocent." I suppose it's a good lesson for the layman in regards to hero worship. Vonnegut famously said in Mother Night, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." Never did he say we are what people expect us to be, and his life is proof enough that it's erroneous for we fans to take as synonymous the creator and the creation. I'm glad I got this book, glad I read it and had my eyes opened to the naivety of my own assumptions about the man based solely on reading his work. I look forward to a closer reading of some of my favorite Vonnegut novels with a light having been shined on the context of his life as it was unfolding around the narratives. Vonnegut is still one of my literary heroes, and I will continue to have heroes--artistic, theological, political--but maybe I'll be cautioned from here on out from putting them on too high a pedestal. It's unfair to both of us. (less)

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