Throughout my teen years Chuck Palahniuk was my favorite author. I read all of his books and most of them several times over and I became pretty familiar with his style of writing and his darkly satirical wit. My love of his works reached a peak after I read Rant: An Oral History of Buster Casey. For me that book was the pinnacle of his writings and since then I haven’t found his new works to be as exciting or funny anymore. I’ve since been rummaging around for a new author on whom to hang my literary hat, a new Chuck Palahniuk, if you will.This brings me to Kurt Vonnegut. I first read Slaughterhouse Five about three years ago and again at the end of 2010. Vonnegut was a name that was familiar to me, I had seen it over and over again in the quotes praising Palahniuk’s books, always something along the lines of ‘Palahniuk is like a modern day Kurt Vonnegut.’ It was only a matter of time before my search for a new Chuck Palahnuik led me to Kurt Vonnegut. As I read Cat’s Cradle I couldn’t help but make the same connection.
Vonnegut’s style is something that I can get behind. I like his deadpan delivery and no-frills prose, the way he’s able to make the absurd seem mundane while mocking the absurdity of the mundane. Ideas come left and right, some so brilliant they require you to stop and think, others so true that you’re convinced that you’ve had the very same thought a thousand times, though have never put it into words. He certainly has a way with those things.
