Jerome Klinkowitz – författare

Drawing on his experiences as a young man in the Great Depression and the Second World War, Kurt Vonnegut created a new style of fiction responsive to the post-war world and unique in its appeal to both popular audiences and avant-garde critics. His work was profoundly innovative and yet perfectly lucid. In this comprehensive introductory study, originally published in 1982, Jerome Klinkowitz traces Vonnegut’s influences within the American middle class, his early efforts as a short-story writer for magazines in the 1960s and his startling and unprecedented success as a bestselling experimental novelist with Slaughterhouse-Five. His self-consciously moral posture led to readers throughout the world accepting him as their spokesman for humane values, a role which Klinkowitz considers within the context of his work.

Drawing on his experiences as a young man in the Great Depression and the Second World War, Kurt Vonnegut created a new style of fiction responsive to the post-war world and unique in its appeal to both popular audiences and avant-garde critics. His work was profoundly innovative and yet perfectly lucid. In this comprehensive introductory study, originally published in 1982, Jerome Klinkowitz traces Vonnegut’s influences within the American middle class, his early efforts as a short-story writer for magazines in the 1960s and his startling and unprecedented success as a bestselling experimental novelist with Slaughterhouse-Five. His self-consciously moral posture led to readers throughout the world accepting him as their spokesman for humane values, a role which Klinkowitz considers within the context of his work.

A defining analysis of the entire span of Kurt Vonnegut''s fiction

Kurt Vonnegut is one of the few American writers since Mark Twain to have won and sustained a great popular acceptance while boldly introducing new themes and forms on the literary cutting edge. This is the "Vonnegut effect" that Jerome Klinkowitz finds unique among postmodernist authors.

In this innovative study of the author''s fiction, Klinkowitz examines the forces in American life that have made Vonnegut''s works possible. Vonnegut shared with readers a world that includes the expansive timeline from the Great Depression, during which his family lost their economic support, through the countercultural revolt of the 1960s, during which his fiction first gained prominence. Vonnegut also explored the growth in recent decades of America''s sway in art, which his fiction celebrates, and geopolitics, which his novels question.

A pioneer in Vonnegut studies, Jerome Klinkowitz offers The Vonnegut Effect as a thorough treatment of the author''s fiction—a canon covering more than a half century and comprising twenty books. Considering both Vonnegut''s methods and the cultural needs they have served, Klinkowitz explains how those works came to be written and concludes with an assessment of the author''s place in American fiction.

Kurt Vonnegut''s death in 2007 marked the passing of a major force in American life and letters. Jerome Klinkowitz, one of the earliest and most prolific authorities on Vonnegut, examines the long dialogue between the author and American culture—a conversation that produced fourteen novels and hundreds of short stories and essays. Kurt Vonnegut''s America integrates discussion of the fiction, essays, and lectures with personal exchanges and biographical sketches to map the complex symbiotic relationship between Vonnegut''s work and the cultural context from which it emerged—and which it in turn helped shape.

Following an introduction characterizing Vonnegut as Klinkowitz came to know him over the course of their friendship, this study charts the impact of Vonnegut on American society and of that society on Vonnegut for more than a half-century to illustrate how each informed the other. Among his artistic peers, Vonnegut was uniquely gifted at anticipating and articulating the changing course of American culture. Kurt Vonnegut''s America shows us that Vonnegut achieved greatness by passing his own test—opening the eyes of his audience to help them better understand their roles and possibilities in the common culture they both shared and crafted.

Vonnegut in Fact offers a thorough assessment of the artistry of Kurt Vonnegut, known not only as the best-selling author of Slaughterhouse-Five, Timequake, and a dozen other novels, but also as the most widely recognized public spokesperson among writers since Mark Twain. Jerome Klinkowitz traces the emergence of Vonnegut''s nonfiction since the 1960s, when commentary and feature journalism replaced the rapidly dying short story market.

Offering close readings and insightful criticism of Vonnegut''s three major works of nonfiction, his many uncollected pieces, and his unique manner of public speaking, Klinkowitz explains how Vonnegut''s personal visions developed into a style of great public responsibility that mirrored the growth of his fiction. Klinkowitz views his subject as a gentle manipulator of popular forms and an extremely personable figure; what might seem radically innovative and even iconoclastic in his fiction becomes comfortably avuncular and familiarly American when followed to its roots in his public spokesmanship.