Name: We Are What We Pretend To Be
ISBN: 9781593157432

Perseus

A posthumous double volume of the influential author's first and last written works, published to coincide with the 90th anniversary of his birth, includes the bitter satire "Basic training" and the unfinished final novel "If God were alive today". In the foreword, Nannette Vonnegut, shares her reminiscences about her father and the autobiographical events in his life relate to these two works.

The First and Last Works

We Are What We Pretend To Be

Patrick Book

The two stories here, Vonnegut's (probably) first and last unpublished works, are tangibly, tactilely different. The latter, more than the former, is a lost gem the world really needed h to finish. 

"Basic Training," posited here as Vonnegut's first unpublished novella, was apparently intended to be published under a pseudonym. It feels like it was written that way; while it is heavily satiric it lacks the acerbic humour that has always been Vonnegut's signature it's blacker than that, more desperate, more agonized. Still, there's a kernel of what Vonnegut would become one day inside the predictable twists and turns. 

Far better is "If God Was Alive Today," left unwritten in 2007 upon his death. It's six chapters are ultimately completely disheartening, if only because they display the total mastery that remained in his pen right to the end. Even in his late 70s he displays an innate understanding of modern society and especially it's ails. He also knows how to expose its vulnerable underbelly and stab, stab, stab. His portrayal of comedian Gil Berman channels the mighty Bill Hicks like a lightning rod, infusing him with a manic energy that begs to be explored fully. The few chapters contained here are a gift that, I suppose, we were never meant to have. Shame, that.

We Are What We Pretend To Be The First and Last Works

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