A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut is undeniably funny, and so is A Man Without a Country. But Vonnegut’s sort-of-memoir goes beyond wry witticism. He distills all that he has learned in his decades on this planet into this one short book. It’s a glimpse into the mind of one of the greatest authors who has ever lived.

As a fiction writer, Vonnegut has always straddled the whimsical and grim qualities of life. In Slaughterhouse Five, he took the terror and heartache of war and answered it with the mantra, “so it goes.” In A Man Without a Country, he describes the sorry state of the world we live in, but eventually comes to the same conclusion: So it goes.

Kurt Vonnegut was an old man when he wrote this collection of essays, and it definitely shows. He goes from a curmudgeon with no hope for a better future to a man in awe of the beautiful world around him. When you’ve been on the planet for 82 years, you’ve seen human nature at its worst and best. Vonnegut seems comfortable in this contradiction.

In fact, his observations on life and death remain his finest work.

He uses a simple story about mailing a letter to his friends to make a grand point about why we’re alive on this planet. He says,

“We are dancing animals. How beautiful is it to get up and go out and do something. We are here on Earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.”

He describes how spending time with his seven children (three are his adopted nephews) forces him to think about the meaning of life. When he asks his son why we’re here, his son replies, “Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.”

As the former president of the American Humanist Association, Vonnegut believed people should act as decently as they can without expecting rewards later in an afterlife. His essay collection reflects this belief. He lived his life as someone who never thought there’s something more to the world than what we see right here, but who wanted to treat every person with respect and compassion anyway.

source: Wikipedia.org

For all of the beautiful thoughts on life in the book, Vonnegut also wears his years. At one point, he explains that humor is a powerful tool to deal with death and the unpleasant facts of life. Yet he says, “If you live long enough, a lot of people close to you are going to die. It may be that I am no longer able to joke – that it is no longer a satisfactory defense mechanism.”

The author clearly still had his quirky sense of humor, even at 82. But this statement contains truth nonetheless. Everyone comes to terms with the reality of death one way or another. It’s what you do with your life in the meantime that counts. Humor won’t bring your loved ones back, but it can make survival a little easier, for a time. Vonnegut points out that you can’t laugh everything away. Sometimes, harsh reality catches up to you, and that’s alright too.

This was one of the last things Kurt Vonnegut wrote before his death in 2007. He had fallen down the stairs at his home, and succumbed to his injuries shortly afterward.

In his 84 years, Vonnegut made a lasting impact on the literary world. A Man Without a Country makes a lasting impact on readers’ lives. He packs decades of wisdom into less than 200 pages. You could probably read the whole thing on your lunch break. That’ll be the best lunch break you’ve ever had.