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    God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
    Unavailable
    God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
    Unavailable
    God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
    Ebook46 pages29 minutes

    God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

    By Kurt Vonnegut and Neil Gaiman

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    From Slapstick's "Turkey Farm" to Slaughterhouse-Five's eternity in a Tralfamadorean zoo cage with Montana Wildhack, the question of the afterlife never left Kurt Vonnegut's mind. In God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian, Vonnegut skips back and forth between life and the Afterlife as if the difference between them were rather slight. In thirty odd "interviews," Vonnegut trips down "the blue tunnel to the pearly gates" in the guise of a roving reporter for public radio, conducting interviews: with Salvatore Biagini, a retired construction worker who died of a heart attack while rescuing his schnauzer from a pit bull, with John Brown, still smoldering 140 years after his death by hanging, with William Shakespeare, who rubs Vonnegut the wrong way, and with socialist and labor leader Eugene Victor Debs, one of Vonnegut's personal heroes.
    What began as a series of ninety-second radio interludes for WNYC, New York City's public radio station, evolved into this provocative collection of musings about who and what we live for, and how much it all matters in the end. From the original portrait by his friend Jules Feiffer that graces the cover, to a final entry from Kilgore Trout, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian remains a joy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRandom House Publishing Group
    Release dateJan 4, 2011
    ISBN9781609802097
    Unavailable
    God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
    Author

    Kurt Vonnegut

    Kurt Vonnegut was a master of contemporary American Literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Siren's of Titan in 1959 and established him as ""a true artist"" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He was, as Graham Greene has declared, ""one of the best living American writers.""

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    Reviews for God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian

    3.5/5

    504 ratings19 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Good, sometimes biting, interviews but probably better narrated than read.
    • 4/5
      A quirky little book by a master storyteller. The premise is unique: the author inveighs upon Dr. Kevorkian to kill him, he goes to heaven and meets characters from history, and then the good doctor resuscitates him. He makes the trip multiple times, weaving all sorts of stories into a tapestry of politics, history, and literature. My favorite was the visit with Mary Shelley.
    • 5/5
      Vonnegut becomes a "reporter on the afterlife" and works with Dr. Kevorkiaan to have "controlled near death experiences." He straps himself to a gurney and lets Dr. Kevorkian work his magic in order to go to the pearly gates and interview people. While in the "blue tunnel" Vonnegut befriends Saint Peter and gets to interview dozens of people such as: John Brown, Hitler, Eugene Debs, William Shakespeare, Isaac Asimov, Sir Isaac Newton, and many more. The interviews are quite short and humorous ranging from one to four pages in length. Each story imparts some sort of moral or irreverent value and shows what a genius Kurt Vonnegut really is. It's an insanely quick read and showcases Vonnegut's zany and brilliant writing style.
    • 2/5
      I wish I would have heard the radio spots. These short pieces were clever and oh-so-Vonnegut, but they were far too brief. I really wish they would have been expanded for the book.I find myself wondering about Vonnegut's use of Dr. Kevorkian as a vehicle into the afterlife. Having read a decent amount of his stuff, I know that no details are chosen without reason. I think I'd like to have a near death experience and ask him about it.
    • 4/5
      I love this book. I think that it was the first Vonnegut book that i had read. I love his near death experiences, and how he talks to people in the afterlife. Its just a very interesting way to think about things and how he is writing this book. It's a very short and easy read, but also makes you think why is he writing this.
    • 3/5
      This maybe the shortest Vonnegut book yet (in par with A man without a country).It contains short stories each about a 1-2 pages long portraying the authors visit to meet the dead.Though I am a fan of Vonnegut I didn't really like this one. It contains many references to contemporary events (e.g. Kevorkian being a doctor who killed his patients), which makes it harder to enjoy if you are not familiar with the events.
    • 3/5
      It's OK, but there just isn't enough material here to warrant a book. It should have been included in a larger collection.
    • 4/5
      super fun concept, could of/should of been developed more, and maybe made longer, i'd say. but still a great read-- for the half an hour that it lasted.
    • 3/5
      Typical dry sardonic Vonnegut that any Vonnegut fan has come to know and love. My main gripe is that all of his bickering and cleverness has really been fleshed out more thoroughly in some of his other works (Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions) and I feel like once you've read a few Vonnegut books you've read them all.
    • 4/5
      A quirky little book by a master storyteller. The premise is unique: the author inveighs upon Dr. Kevorkian to kill him, he goes to heaven and meets characters from history, and then the good doctor resuscitates him. He makes the trip multiple times, weaving all sorts of stories into a tapestry of politics, history, and literature. My favorite was the visit with Mary Shelley.
    • 4/5
      God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian is a very, very short book consisting of fictional interviews of dead people by Vonnegut. It was a neat idea, adapted from short interludes meant for radio, and I especially enjoyed his interviews with Hitler and Mary Shelley. My only regret is that the book wasn't *longer*!
    • 4/5
      A fast and often brilliant novella from a master story-teller, GOD BLESS YOU, DR. KEVORKIAN unfolds in a series of vignettes. The subject matter is life, death, and what comes before and after each, delivered to the narrator -- Vonnegut himself -- by deceased historical figures. Like other Vonnegut work, this book is poignant, elegant, and bursting with wise humor. Vonnegut is never one to waste words, and his compactness here is more pronounced than usual, allowing for rapid-fire bursts of philosophy. Sometimes this compression works against the material, making interactions seem fleeting and occasionally negating their impact. Fortunately, these detractions occur infrequently, making GOD BLESS YOU, DR. KEVORKIAN a fast, excellent read.
    • 2/5
      Kurt Vonnegut delves into the afterlife... literally! He interviews people in heaven and comes up with some cute stories, but overall this book didn't really appeal to me.
    • 4/5
      exceptionally short. i finished in less than an hour. it has the usual vonnegut wit but none of the substance. but i still recommend it if you like the author or if you are waiting at the bus stop. it's better than a magazine.
    • 2/5
      As much as I like Vonnegut, I cannot recommend this particular book to anyone. It is self-indulgent and dull, and only serves to put Vonnegut's words into the mouths of famous dead people rather than making a statement as to the actual philosophy and views of those people. There are a thousand ways he could have made this particular one interesting, but he didn't. A shame.
    • 3/5
      This is a short, precocious little book (77 small-format pages in the one I had, with really sparse printing). The premise is that the protagonist has been enabled by Dr. Kevorkian and some technology to be able to do managed near-death experiences, and use these to visit with people in Heaven just briefly. Some of the interviewees include random Joes and also Adolf Hitler and Clarence Darrow. The book is a well-written little satire. If viewed from the perspective that Vonnegut wanted to make political and moral statements (as usual) in a jabbing satire, this is an enjoyable aperitif you could consume over a long latte.
    • 3/5
      A light bit of fluff with some social commentary woven in. I'm really not sure why he didn't go ahead and make a novel of it. His supposed retirement, I guess. The premise is that of orchestrating near-death experiences so that he could interview the dead.
    • 3/5
      Somewhat entertaining, but very short and shallow. To be translated effectively from the medium of radio to the medium of books, I think the story needed to be significantly elaborated.
    • 5/5
      It's an excellent collection of fictional interviews that end as soon as they begin. Vonnegut's trademark humor seeps through every word and it's a very fun, although short, read. Can't recommend enough, especially if you're a Humanist (oops... humanist).