So It Goes

Can't tell you how excited I am about this book coming out. I've got a deep enjoyment and appreciation of Vonnegut's work. I've read most of it at this point. I was reading TimeQuake this week which is closer to being a collection of aphorisms rather than a story in the typical Vonnegutian vein. I read Man Without A Country, Vonnegut's last published work, last year and there are some definitive shared stories between the two. Sharing between stories is nothing new for Vonnegut I think it's one of the most enjoyable things of reading his works is the act of actively collecting the connections, based on characters, phrases, bird-calls, and seeing how those are reset, re-worked or re-introduced into new settings.
Vonnegut's work is also intriguing because it can be read, possibily to its own detriment, at two different levels. There is the first superficial level where the reader can simply collect the details of the story and work through the story as fiction without picking up any connections. Vonnegut has a very deceptive style postulated as easy to read but he hides rich detail and ideas within his works. This is the second level at which his works can be read. I had to read Man without a Country twice before I realized the almost minimalistic end-result of Vonnegut's writing is purposeful, developed and definitively not accidental.