5 of 30- Armageddon In Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut

This Vonnegut book is a collection of short stories and one speech dealing with war and peace. The introduction was by Kurt's son Mark Vonnegut which provided some funny insights about the author. He touched briefly on the process that his father went through when writing, about how hard he worked to make ever line perfect which I find interesting as his stories always seem somewhat off the cuff in the best possible way. Mark tells an antic dote of his farther when he was briefly employed by Sports Illustrated in the 50's. He was told to write a story about a racehorse that had tried to run away after jumping over a fence. Mark writes that "Kurt stared at the blank piece of paper all morning and then typed, "The horse jumped over the fucking fence," and walked out." Brilliant!

The first story in the book was in the form of a letter Kurt wrote to his dad in 1945 as a private in the army. Kurt's world renowned dark humor is in full effect in this one making me laugh out loud several times over the short letter. I'm pretty sure this is a work of fiction but Kurt was in Dresden in the war so I'm not exactly certain. Either way it's fantastic but if it's real it would take it to a whole level.

My favorite stories are Wailing Shall Be In All Streets about the bombing of Dresden, Great Day set in the future about a unit going back to 1918 to fight in the war, Brighten Up where one pow was in good with the guards and swindled the rest of the prisoners, The Unicorn Trap about a serf family whose father gets chosen to become the towns tax collector and wants to rebel, Spoils about a soldier who has issues about spoils of war, Just You And Me, Sammy about a couple of German speaking American pow's, The Commandant's Desk about a poor Czech cabinet builder who is taken prisoner by American soldiers who had just defeated the Russians in war & Armageddon in Retrospect a story about a group of scientists out to literally capture the devil in an electric trap.

One of my favorite things about the book were Vonnegut's sketches & drawing between each story. One of the best is the one below;