Community Forums

Was picking up a book for my wife last night, which turned out to be on the "Buy one, get one 50% off" table, so naturally I couldn't pass up the offer.  I came across Kurt Vonnegut's Armageddon in Retrospect and had to buy it on the strength of the title alone.

Can anyone else think of a book you've bought simply because of the title?

 

PH

This was my review back when I read it: 

This book is in the same family as The Debt to Pleasure.  I'm not quite sure how to describe the story, but it's very much one of a kind.  It's narrated by an artist who is no longer working, but instead spends his days in vivid reveries while sitting on a bench in the Public Garden.  He has become obsessed with the idea of meeting God face to face and destroying Him because he feels that he could run the world better, with less pain and suffering -- and yet the narrator is seemingly oblivious to the pain he himself is causing in the world, partly as a result of his determination to meet God.  He tells the story of his two best friends and their careers, and of a breathtaking art forgery.  It's not a happy tale, and yet it is told in such a wry, self-deprecating, humorous tone that it feels funny.  The author clearly loves language, with the result that the writing sparkles no matter what the narrator is telling you. 

If a felinicide and some other very even blacker aspects of the tale will upset you, don't read this book.  Otherwise, I absolutely recommend it for its uniqueness if nothing else. 

Did you send him Wotans address????

; )