Armageddon in Retrospect (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Writing was a spiritual exercise for my father, the only thing he really believed in..." (more)
Key Phrases: Kurt Vonnegut, Major Evans, Robert the Horrible (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The first and only collection of unpublished works by Kurt Vonnegut since his death--a fitting tribute to the author, and an essential contribution to the discussion of war, peace, and humanity's tendency toward violence.

Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of twelve new and unpublished writings on war and peace. Imbued with Vonnegut's trademark rueful humor, the pieces range from a visceral nonfiction recollection of the destruction of Dresden during World War II--an essay that is as timely today as it was then--to a painfully funny short story about three Army privates and their fantasies of the perfect first meal upon returning home from war, to a darker, more poignant story about the impossibility of shielding our children from the temptations of violence. Also included are Vonnegut's last speech as well as an assortment of his artwork, and an introduction by the author's son, Mark Vonnegut. Armageddon in Retrospect says as much about the times in which we live as it does about the genius of the writer.

Read an Unreleased Kurt Vonnegut Story, "Guns Before Butter"

"Guns Before Butter," Kurt Vonnegut's story of hungry GIs held as prisoner of war in World War II in Dresden (a site of Vonnegut's best-known novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, and his own wartime imprisonment), was unpublished until its inclusion in Armageddon in Retrospect. Read the complete story here.

Kurt Vonnegut Sketchbook

Click through on the images below to see samples of the artwork included in Armageddon in Retrospect:

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. When Kurt Vonnegut died in April 2007, the world lost a wry commentator on the human condition. Thanks to this collection of unpublished fiction and nonfiction, Vonnegut's voice returns full force. Introduced by his son, these writings dwell on war and peace, especially the firebombing of Dresden, Germany. The volume opens with a poignant 1945 letter from Pfc. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. to his father in Indianapolis, presenting a vivid portrait of his harrowing escape from that city. The fiction, full of his characteristic humor, includes stories about time travel and the impossibility of peace in the world (Great Day) and, in the title piece, a kind of mock Paradise Lost, Dr. Lucifer Mephisto teaches his charges about the insidious nature of evil and the impossibility of good ever triumphing. In his final speech, Vonnegut lets go some of his zingers (jazz is safe sex of the highest order) and does what he always did best, tell the truth through jokes: And how should we behave during the Apocalypse? We should be unusually kind to one another, certainly. But we should also stop being so serious. Jokes help a lot. And get a dog, if you don't already have one. So it goes. (Apr.)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1ST edition (April 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399155082
• ISBN-13: 978-0399155086
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #92,267 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

82 of 94 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars And so it goes...(sigh), April 1, 2008

By	Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Vonnegut is an American treasure. He was the Mark Twain of my generation, and I'm confident that he'll continue to be read and admired by future ones. But not everything that even an author like Vonnegut writes needs to see the light of day. And if Vonnegut himself chose not to publish certain manuscripts during his lifetime, that sends off a pretty good signal.

Which brings us to Armageddon in Retrospect, a posthumous (one of many to come?) collection of twelve unpublished pieces related to war. (The entire collection is prefaced by Vonnegut's final speech, which after his death was read by his son Mark to the gathering that commissioned it. If it actually had been given by Vonnegut, it probably would've been hilarious; delivery is everything. But in print, it's a rather tedious litany of flat one-liners.) Many of the pieces are inspired by Vonnegut's World War II experience as a prisoner of war, the same one that birthed his incomparable Slaughterhouse-Five. But these stories, unlike the novel, are...well, at best mildly interesting and insightful. The only one that really measures up to the Vonnegut genius is the title piece, "Armageddon in Retrospect." Less good but still respectable are "Great Day" and "Happy Birthday, 1951." But other pieces in the collection, such as "Just You and Me, Sammy" and "Brighten Up" are just awful: mechanical in style, predictable in plot.

What does come across in these hitherto unpublished writings is the humanist Vonnegut's deep hatred of war. (In the collection's Introduction, son Mark tells us that Vonnegut became depressed and hopeless when the current war in Iraq broke out.) The quality of the stories anthologized here may be uneven, but their passionate indictment of what war does to the soldiers and civilians who live through it is itself eloquent.

But is it eloquent enough to warrant the publication of these pieces? I dunno. Reasonable people can reasonably disagree on that one. But I do hope that Vonnegut's literary executors will think long and hard before publishing every scribble he left behind. Even geniuses like Vonnegut had their bad writing days.

And by the way, Kurt: I miss ya.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "When does all the hate end?", April 8, 2008

By	Gregory Baird (Morristown, NJ) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

"Where do I get my ideas from? You might as well have asked that of Beethoven. He was goofing around in Germany like everybody else, and all of a sudden this stuff came gushing out of him. It was music. I was goofing around like everybody else in Indiana, and all of a sudden stuff came gushing out. It was disgust with civilization."

Kurt Vonnegut was no stranger to getting his feelings out there in his fiction. Slaughterhouse-Five is the most obvious example, using protagonist Billy Pilgrim's experience as a survivor of the horrific bombing of Dresden as a stand-in for Vonnegut himself, who was a prisoner of war during that life-altering event. Being present for that atrocity forever scarred Vonnegut's perception of humanity, and the repercussions can be felt whenever you pick up one of his books. Truly, he was a man with a complicated, tortured perspective on the rest of the world. He had seen humanity at its worst, yet still seemed to believe that it was possible for man to redeem himself if he would just try. Yes, Vonnegut's canon is packed with the disgust for civilization that he mentions in the above quote, but it is also marked by a starry-eyed hopefulness. William Golding, author of "Lord of the Flies," struck the same chords in his fiction, and he took home a Nobel Prize for his troubles.

"Armageddon in Retrospect" is a collection of previously unpublished works by Vonnegut, almost exclusively from the period of his life after he returned home from WWII and before he struck it big as a novelist. The exceptions are a speech that he was meant to deliver in Indianapolis in late April, 2007, but which had to be delivered by his son, Mark, instead after Vonnegut passed away earlier that same month, and a letter that he wrote to his family to explain what had happened to him since he had been taken prisoner (namely, that he had survived that dreadful firebombing in Dresden and would be returning home, although many of his compatriots had not been so lucky). The letter is nothing short of astonishing. Devoid of almost all emotion, it resonates powerfully - a truly timeless document, but one that is especially meaningful in a time when there are American soldiers overseas and fighting rages on. The speech, on the other hand, is notable as the last piece of writing the great Vonnegut would produce, but for anyone who read A Man Without a Country it will sound a little too familiar.

The bulk of "Armageddon" is comprised of short stories, and splendid stories they are, if a slight touch uneven. "Great Day," "The Unicorn Trap," and, unfortunately, the title story, "Armageddon in Retrospect," are stumbles, but only minor ones. Luckily, the good stories do more than their share to balance things out. With two exceptions, all of the stories deal directly with the wages of war and the soldiers who survive the ordeal. All of them examine the inherent corruptibility of man, and the things some people are willing to do to survive. More than one story features a character who cozies up to his enemy in order to make his situation more comfortable, and uses that position to exploit his comrades in POW camp. The best of the bunch, "Happy Birthday, 1951," is a poignant look at an older man who is trying to teach a young boy the value of peace, but who cannot compete with the glamorous appeal of tanks and guns to sway the boy's interests.

"Armageddon in Retrospect" feels like the most personal of Vonnegut's works on the market, perhaps because in its twists and turns you can feel the personal struggle of its author to reconcile what he has seen of the realities of mankind's present and past with what he hopes is in store for the future. If at times he angrily remarks "When does all the hate end? Never," he also has the power to envision a soldier who has just arrived in Europe, untainted by the fighting that had gone on, who singlehandedly restores the faith of a cabinet-maker whose experiences during his city's occupation have left him with little hope for the future. If we could just get away from war's influence, Vonnegut seems to be arguing, we might just be all right in the end.

With all of these weighty contemplations, it is a wonder that Vonnegut was able to hold on to his whimsical touch, but thankfully he never lost that attribute. Everything he wrote was imbued with a keen eye for the absurd, the fantastic, and the satiric. And for evidence of this look no further than the author photo gazing out from the back of the book's jacket, featuring an aged Vonnegut waving to the camera with a goofy expression on his face (half serious, half amused), framed by voluminous flowers and a garden gnome riding a pig (seriously). It amuses me, but it is also rather sad, because in the context of this book's publication it feels like he is waving goodbye. I never met Kurt Vonnegut, but I will miss him terribly. At least, with "A Man without a Country" and "Armageddon in Retrospect" the great author got the goodbye he deserved.

Grade: A

PS My personal favorite when it comes to Vonnegut is Mother Night, so be sure to snap that one up post haste.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lucky Find, May 2, 2008

By	Benjamin Hamilton "Awesome" (Colorado) - See all my reviews

I saw this at a bookstore and was surprised to see a "new" Vonnegut book. He is a fantastic writer and this book is no exception. The reason for four stars rather than five is that some of the stories are a little "rough" (you've been pitching that all night). I can see why some were not published previously. However, there are some in the book that are outstanding. If you like Vonnegut, you'll love this book. If you are a first time reader of him I would start with one of his other books first.