Wednesday 26 October 2011

Kurt Vonnegut censorship.

It now seems I must read Cat's Cradle !  This is a book that Kurt is famous for, as well as many others.  I started looking into this guy when I read a small 'blog' on Ralph STEADman's web site.  Ralph STEADman points out, with some disgust: "Now, Hardly 3 years after his death, some wretched, asinine School Board in a place ominously called Republic, Missouri- has voted to ban Kurt's personal first masterpiece, SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE"  Slaughterhouse Five is the shortened title of a book Kurt Wrote about his experiences in World War II.  The full title is "Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, a Fourth-Generation German-American Now Living in Easy Circumstances on Cape Cod [and Smoking Too Much], Who, as an American Infantry Scout Hors de Combat, as a Prisoner of War, Witnessed the Fire Bombing of Dresden, Germany, ‘The Florence of the Elbe,’ a Long Time Ago, and Survived to Tell the Tale. This Is a Novel Somewhat in the Telegraphic Schizophrenic Manner of Tales of the Planet Tralfamadore, Where the Flying Saucers Come From. Peace."

Ralph is quite correctly horrified at the fascist attitude in banning this book.

A lovely quote from Kurt "The only difference between Bush and Hitler is that Hitler was elected".

9 comments:

  1. I finally figured out how to follow your blog :)

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  2. I haven't read much of Kurt's stuff but he was good.

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  3. Thank you Dewayne - I now have 5 followers :) (one is me and two are one other but hell who's counting)

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  4. And thank you BBC for your input - It adds weight to my conviction that I must get hold of Kurt's work. How about "following" this blog too and then there will be 6! And do you know what has happened to Dinners or even Dilligaf?

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  5. But what better way to make kids want to go out and buy a copy to find out what's it it?

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  6. Quite right! So there is still hope for us :)
    (Maybe one day they will ban Toxic Drums)

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  7. 4D doesn't reply to my emails either. I hope that things are going okay for him but hey, he does down a fifth a day, pretty sure that would kill me.

    I had a party with Brandy Friday night, Brandy and I had a great time, but when I woke up in the morning she was dead and I tossed the bottle in the garbage and went back to bed, slept through most of the day.:-)

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  8. I am alive and well and still living in downtown Mogadishu...my e-mail has changed too...fourdinners@mail.com

    Soz for my absense....rather worryingly perhaps..I'm back..;-)

    although for some reason I can't comment off Dilligaf II...oh I hate technology!!!

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  9. Yippee! Oops sorry - I'll try to be more laid back and cynical. As for technology - it isn't the technology that's the problem, it's the gits that write the software. Oh, and the megalomaniacs that run things like Google and Fookbase.

    It's really good to know you are alright. Better your computer packs up than your liver!

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