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Answered Questions (2)

Anyone else getting severe Wes Anderson vibes? With all the wrinkly larger than life men, no nonsense elegant women, and upper class east coast setting. There's even a character obsessed with uniforms!

Alex Yeahhh... maybe. I wouldn't be surprised if Wes Anderson has cited Vonnegut as an inspiration somewhere. They have a similar sense of humor. They use …moreYeahhh... maybe. I wouldn't be surprised if Wes Anderson has cited Vonnegut as an inspiration somewhere. They have a similar sense of humor. They use understatement, brevity, absurdity, and create really interesting tragic characters. Their casts are similarly honest, depressed, humbled to the point of self-deprecation, and wonderfully odd. But here's where I see their main differences, and I'm looking at their overall bodies of work for this; and, though I'm not worthy, forgive my audacity, I'm going to refer to them on a first name basis. They probably wouldn't mind. Here it is: Kurt and Wes are both masters of their art, both perfected their styles, both brilliant and visionary. But I think Kurt's work has a depth Wes' does not. K's a veteran, as are most of his characters, and through their experience in war they offer a greater sardonic message, a deeper social comment; he has a darker perspective, longer shadows in a more dimensional work. So, to your point about uniforms: true, but for Kurt, it's not about costuming, it's about the humans within and how absurd it is that their clothes should make them different- as seen in "Now it's the Women's Turn." Wes, in his own right, has made his camera and sets an amazing narrator on its own, making the visual storytelling the core of his work. Kurt does something greater in his narratives by surpassing time and space through the narrator's dynamic place in their own timeline. I loved how in Bluebeard he snapped back and forth with the "back to the past:" and "back to the present:" lines. And my last note: Wes' work is most often described as "whimsical." It is. It's kind of cute. It marks his style. But Kurt! Oh, my hero, Kurt. He is never cute. If it seems he is, it's sarcastic. He's so good at his dark, black humor, so penetrating; it's like he's laughing at a knife in his leg, pulls it out of his "meat" and laughs harder about how terrible and ridiculous it is, and gives you the knife saying "try it. It hurts like hell, but it doesn't matter, nothing matters, everything matters, feel something!" He's writing and laughing from a deep moral center that's so appalled at the world for being what it is, from a human, empathetic place that's forgiving of humans but not forgiving of humanity. That's his core. He's not making light of, he's making dark of how f'd up we are; we see it in Breakfast of Champs with the "chemicals" and it's in Bluebeard with "I'd hate to be responsible for what my meat does." We are our single band of unwavering light. We cannot help being meat. So, anyway, I love both of these artists, and I totally see what you're saying, but Kurt has many more layers that make these two as comparable as mild salsa and gourmet seven-layer dip. (less)

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Is it possible to enjoy this book without first reading Breakfast of Champions?

Jerry Travis As with all of his works, they stand independent of each other, although there might be an occasional cameo, as it were, from characters living in oth…moreAs with all of his works, they stand independent of each other, although there might be an occasional cameo, as it were, from characters living in other works. Bluebeard is my favorite Vonnegut for one reason. There is a place where he uses a one-word sentence containing two letters, which says more than most writers can manage in a full chapter.(less)

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Unanswered Questions (1)

Here's a story from the New York Times that's sort of like a real life BLUEBEARD: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/nyregion/creating-art-in-the-shadows.html# Goodreads wants this to be a question, so, umm... what do you think?

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