Vonnegut by the Dozen

America owes Kurt Vonnegut a debt of gratitude for infusing its culture with the brilliant insight found in books like Mother Night, Player Piano and Slaughterhouse-5--and for the mordantly funny writings assembled in this collection. The Nation was one of Vonnegut's outlets for his political writings. He contributed to the magazine once or twice a year from 1978 to 1998, like a regular donation to the United Way. His politics were consistently on the left, and after fighting in World War II--which, for all its horrors, he considered just--he angrily condemned all of the United States' subsequent wars of choice. He wrote in a kind of faux-simpleminded style. He avoided the high seriousness demanded by some critics, who dismissed his body of work as a product of the 1960s counterculture, popular only among shaggy-haired youths with callow taste. But his best work, as you'll see, deals with ultimate questions.