If God Were Alive Today by Kurt Vonnegut.
Title: If God Were Alive Today.
Author: Kurt Vonnegut..
Genre: Fiction, literature, satire, apocalyptic fiction, social criticism.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: Unfinished in 2007 on K.V.'s death (published in 2012).
Summary: This last work is a brutal satire on societal ignorance and carefree denial of the world's major problems. Protagonist Gil Berman is a middle-aged college lecturer and self-declared stand-up comedian who enjoys cracking jokes in front of a college audience while societal dependence on fossil fuels has led to the apocalypse.
My rating: 7/10
♥ Berman said in response to the old geezer: “Please, no questions from the audience, and no autographs or interviews afterward.” There came now, as a formal announcement, a bit he had done for Who’s Sorry Now? He hadn’t planned to use it, but it now seemed apt. “I know the question on the tips of the tongues of all who might wish to interview me: ‘Mr.Berman, where do you get your ideas from?’ Well, you might as well have asked the same question of Lewd-vig van Beethoven. Young Lewd-vig was horsing around Germany like everybody else, and all of a sudden all this shit came pouring out of him, and it was music. I was horsing around at Columbia University like everybody else, and all of a sudden all this shit came pouring out, and it was embarrassment about my country.”
♥ “Money is dehydrated mercy. If you have plenty of it, you just add tears, and people come out of the woodwork to comfort you.”
♥ “Who’s kidding whom? We’re having a War on Drugs? The biggest American industry in dollar volume, number of employees, and persons and even nations directly or indirectly affected by it, is the thwarting or bankrolling, manufacture, shipping, and sales, wholesale and retail, of mind-bending, mood-enhancing, or blackout chemicals, including alcohol. Half the banks and brokerage in California and Florida would go bust if it weren’t for invested profits from the drug trade. But don’t worry: The War on Drugs might as well be a war on glaciers, with the soldiers armed with ice picks and smoking joints.”
♥ Without Desamol to protect him, he had fallen in love with Dr. Helen Newman Klein back at Caldwell as well. He had so far found love an easily manageable side effect of sobriety, just as he had managed the occasional dizziness caused by Desamol: no need for panic or drastic revisions of lifestyle. The feeling would pass.