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Deadeye Dick
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Disappointing
Review date: 2008-01-13 Rating: 4 out of 10
I was very disappointed with this book, I didn't think it was funny or clever or thought provoking, just dull and depressing. This is only the second Kurts Vonnegut book I have read, other book Jailbird I thoroughly enjoying, its one of my all time best reads.
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Further insights into the human condition
Review date: 2005-07-11 Rating: 10 out of 10
Kurt Vonnegut's ability to interweave characters and experiences and his ability to quantify throw away events does little to mask his genius. His books should be read in as few sittings as possible if only to ensure a thread of narrative isn't dismissed as superfluous storytelling. In Dead Eye Dick, Kurt explores the loss of innocence. The act that initiates the narrators loss ensures redemption is only a flight of fancy. Kurt's ability to create a perfect narrative arc places the titles main event after the reader has inadvertently judged the main character by the preceding narrative. The double homicide leading to the narrators association with the books title is horrific and tragic in equal measure. Kurt explores the structure of unfortunate associations and out of date political ideals and blends with the act of childish curiosity to rustle up a series of truly unfortunate events. The horrific event has the ability to reach out and change all associated with the main character. Kurt uses pin sharp satire and the blackest of humour across a wide range of supplementary characters and events to illustrate a gamut of sociological and psychological oddities. Each character in the book comes with a complete insight into their character. The characters are inventive and highly individual, opportunities to characterize another viewpoint is never wasted, from the Haitian voodoo priest hotelier to the amphetamine ravaged first love, all come with there stories to tell and lessons to learn. Kurt's books always fill the reader with a sense of optimism, whether it be from gained enlightenment or from the gentle reminders to ensure life does ebb away with the routine actions of every day working life. To ensure we are not living out the epilogue of a great story before the great story was told.
Symbolic musings on the life of an unforgettable character
Review date: 2003-04-27 Rating: 8 out of 10
Deadeye Dick is a novel only Kurt Vonnegut could have written – quirky, strange, thought-provoking, and a little bit depressing. The story of Deadeye Dick and his family is not a happy one. Rudy Waltz acquires his unusual nickname at the age of twelve by accidentally killing a woman in his hometown, but the whole story starts well before Rudy was even born. His father was supposedly a promising artist, or at least his own mother thought so, but he and his painting tutor did little more than travel around getting drunk and carousing with women of ill repute; after the tutor was exposed as a sham, Otto Waltz went to Austria to study in the years before the Great War; his lack of talent forbade him entry to the Academy, and he developed a friendship with another failed artist who later became chancellor of the Third Reich. This association with Hitler and some of his ideas would come back to haunt Otto in the 1940s. Rudy was Otto’s second son, and on the day when his father bestowed upon him the key to the gun room, Rudy took a rifle up to the top of the cupola at his family’s most unusual residence, fired it randomly, and unknowingly shot a pregnant woman right between the eyes while she was vacuuming – thus did Rudy receive the nickname Deadeye Dick. His father insisted on making a production about how everything was his fault, and life would never be the same again for the dysfunctional Waltz family. They lost everything, and life got little better as Rudy matured. The story of Deadeye Dick and his family goes on to include such events as a decapitation, a death by chimney (it was made of radioactive cement), and the eventual death of everyone in the whole town by way of an accidental neutron bomb explosion. There is a lot of symbolism in the book, and Vonnegut’s discussion of what certain symbols mean in the introduction is particularly helpful in understanding this novel (although I’m still a little unsure about the random inclusion of recipes throughout the story). One experiences a definite lack of closure upon completing this fascinating read, and that inevitably disappoints some readers, including myself to some degree, but I don’t think any can deny the fact that Deadeye Dick offers a typically Vonnegut-like interpretation of life and offers much food for thought to the serious reader.
Product Details/Specifications
Authors:
Kurt Vonnegut
Recording label: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
Manufacturer: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group
EAN: 9780385334174
Binding: Paperback
Dewey decimal number: 813.54
ISBN: 0385334176
Number of items: 1
Number of pages: 288
Publication date: 1982-01-10
Language: English (Unknown)
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: English (Published)