Vonnegut and Dostoevsky

If the <a href=“http://rob.annable.co.uk/journal.cgi/2004/05/19#hhgttg_movie”>Hitch Hiker's Guide taught me <em>how</em> to read</a>, then <a href=“http://www.duke.edu/~crh4/vonnegut/sh5/”>Slaughterhouse 5</a> taught me <em>what</em> to read. In it one of the characters says, <em>Everything you need to know about life can be found in The Brothers Karamazov</em>; I tried it, he was right.

Vonnegut's interest in <a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dostoevsky”>Dostoevsky</a> still shows itself in a recent piece of his I've just stumbled across.

<blockquote> Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible and The Charge of the Light Brigade. </blockquote>

(taken from Cold Turkey by Kurt Vonnegut via <a href=“http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/natep/2004/05/23#a331”>Nate</a>)