A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (2005)
This nonfiction title is the last of Vonnegut's books intentionally written for publication by the other, nonfiction, fiction, or otherwise. That is, and I'm hoping, in the future, there will be published other works of Vonnegut, which he had not previously published. After all, before he died recently, Vonnegut was often called the "greatest living American author." Now that he has passed away, he joins an enormous list of classic American authors, known for a style found nowhere else in the world.
As mentioned, this is a work of nonfiction, mostly autobiographical, though some contains rants and other opinion pieces. Vonnegut wrote several books of this nature. This one covers much of the major events of his life, as well as much of his personal philosophy and worldview. One thing you can be sure, Vonnegut does not hold back on anything. Written with the simple, intentional, and very precise language his readers have come to admire him for, Vonnegut finishes a great list of masterpieces with this, A Man Without a Country, which also contains some of his famous line-drawings, as well as individual "blue pages between each chapter," each which includes a joke from Vonnegut. As usual, the book is only mid-sized in number of pages and the text is fairly large. Overall, there is nothing out of the ordinary, when it comes to Vonnegut's other books.
You can easily search for a description of the individual chapters to see exactly what topics he chose to include in this publication. The purpose of my review, instead, was to inform you, the potential buyer/reader, of how it is written. However, I will say that one of the chapters includes some of Vonnegut's memories and comments on the WWII Dresden air-raid, of which he was only one of a handful of survivors, linking up to how he ended up writing in the first place (and his opinion on those who consider him sci-fi) and his first internationally renown work, Slaughterhouse Five.
That said, if you are particularly interested in his nonfiction comps, or if you would like to add Vonnegut's final work to your collection, this is a must buy.Read full review
