Focusing on Post-modern Literature Related to the War and Aftermath

Over the years I've largely ignored most of Vonnegut's work through ignorance and laziness (it's easy to avoid serious and challenging fiction a lot of the time). I recently finished reading Mother Night and I'm hooked. I'm amazed at the way Vonnegut distills the historical events, political conflicts, and humans struggle with truth into their simplest, most accessible elements. The book feels like a blueprint to examining and discussing authoritarianism and conflict on a global scale.

I'm re-reading Slaughterhouse Five right now and planning on picking up The Sirens of Titan after that. While the later doesn't deal with the war, it feels like a good third work to add that deals with similar themes and creates a sort of continuity.

Does anyone on this sub have suggestions for other works by Vonnegut or others that are similar in their examination of sociology, nationalist ideals, and global conflict? Murakami comes to mind as an example of an author focused on the personal and sociological effects the war had on Japan, and I'm planning on starting The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle after I'm finished (for now) with Vonnegut.

Posted May 26, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

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rsh412•

Cat’s Cradle and Breakfast of Champions are the other two most well known Vonnegut and they’re both great. They’re not about war (although politics comes up a lot in Cat’s Cradle) but they do have a great way of breaking down the absurdity of human experience. The other book that immediately comes to mind is Catch-22 which is set in Europe during WWII and alternates between absurdist comedy and bleak drama.

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