A satiric quest for knowledge: Kurt Vonnegut's legacy

Collado Rodríguez, Francisco (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Resumen: n his perceptive essay on Vonnegut’s masterpiece Slaughterhouse-Five, Salman Rushdie comments that the first time he read the novel, in 1972, he felt the presence in its pages of the Vietnam War. Despite the fact that Vonnegut’s classic book deals with the Second World War and its psychological aftermaths, Rushdie argues that “people’s feelings about Vietnam have a good deal to do with the novel’s huge success” (2019, 2). Nevertheless,
the literary and emotional achievements of the novel have extended for decades after the end of the Vietnam War, which may bring to mind the idea that Slaughterhouse-Five is still a powerful book because wars have never stopped. Vonnegut’s novel, Rushdie perceives, “sees war as a tragedy so great that perhaps only the mask of comedy allows one to look it in the eye”

Idioma: Inglés

Año: 2022

Publicado en: Nexus (Santiago de Compostela) 2022, 2 (2022), 24-33
ISSN: 1697-4646

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)

Área (Departamento): Área Filología Inglesa (Dpto. Filolog.Inglesa y Alema.)