The latest release from the holding company everything Kurt Vonnegut has released a novel of short stories that like any Kurt Vonnegut book make one wonder how any person from this Earth could be such a magnificent writer. The answer is plain but not simple. Kurt was never from this Earth, at least not in spirit. He was born here but recorded the intricacies of life through the imagination of the stars. His configurations of character that both mock and rely on the routines and guidelines of reality draw there own constellations waiting to be discovered. While Mortals Sleep contains stories of men and machines, art and artifice, and how ideals of fortune, fame, and love take curious twists in ordinary lives. These stories are decidedly less flamboyant both in style and subject matter than his later, more representative work but release upon the literary world nothing less then remarkable. Vonnegut's characters are ordinary people that draws us into their unremarkable lives with remarkable speed and efficiency. After Kurt's death it is hard not to imagine him close by, smiling, smoking Paul Malls, and thinking about the next story. Somehow we will get it. He compares the ironic to the purely imaginative, the hero to his love of crime, and the machine that every person becomes when enthralled in love. I will end with a quotes from the beginning story. “When a man has not built up a certain immunity to love through constant exposure to it, he is in danger of all but being killed by love when the first exposure comes.”
This beautifully collection of rendered works are a testament to Vonnegut’s unique blend of observation and imagination. Like a present left behind by a departed loved one, While Mortals Sleep bestows upon us a shimmering Kurt Vonnegut gift: a poignant reflection of our world as it is and as it could be.
