For Kurt Vonnegut, “the fantastic offers perception into the quotidian, rather than escape from it.” His tragi-comic novels have earned him a dedicated following and critical acclaim. Their highly imaginative plots—informed by, but not limited to, science fiction—describe a world forced to reenact an entire decade after a temporal disturbance (Timequake), a man who accidentally befriends Adolf Hitler (Deadeye Dick), and a substance that will instantaneously turn all the world’s water into ice (Cat’s Cradle). Although events occur on a worldwide scale, we never lose our intimate perspective into the daily life and personal reactions of Vonnegut’s characters. Their unpredictable presence makes it so that his apocalyptic stories, although grim, never stop being funny. As he said, “[l]aughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.”
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