Lawrence R. Broer's Books

Sanity Plea

Schizophrenia in the Novels of Kurt Vonnegut

By: Lawrence R. Broer

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Sanity Plea

Schizophrenia in the Novels of Kurt Vonnegut

By: Lawrence R. Broer

In this revised edition of a volume originally published in 1989, Lawrence Broer extends his comprehensive critique of the body of writing by Kurt Vonnegut. Broer offers a broad psychoanalytic study of Vonnegut’s works from Player Piano to Hocus Pocus, taking a decisively new approach to the work of one of America’s most important, yet often misinterpreted writers. A compelling and original analysis, Sanity Plea, explores how Vonnegut incorporates his personal experiences into an art that is not defeatist, but rather creatively therapeutic and life-affirming.

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Page Count

259

Publisher

University of Alabama Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0817307524

ISBN 13

9780817307523

Vonnegut & Hemingway

Writers at War

By: Lawrence R. Broer

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Vonnegut & Hemingway

Writers at War

By: Lawrence R. Broer

A study of surprising similarities in their lives and works “adds an important element to the existing discussion” of two twentieth-century literary icons (Studies in American Humor). In this original comparative study of Kurt Vonnegut and Ernest Hemingway, Lawrence R. Broer maps the striking intersections of biography and artistry in works by both writers, and compares the ways they blend life and art. Broer views Hemingway as the “secret sharer” of Vonnegut’s literary imagination and argues that the two writers—traditionally considered as adversaries because of Vonnegut’s rejection of Hemingway’s emblematic hypermasculinism—inevitably address similar deterministic wounds in their fiction: childhood traumas, family insanity, deforming wartime experiences, and depression. Rooting his discussion in these psychological commonalities, Broer traces their personal and artistic paths by pairing sets of works and protagonists in ways that show the two writers not only addressing similar concerns, but developing a response that in the end establishes an underlying kinship when it comes to the fate of the American hero of the twentieth century. Hemingway provided frequent fodder for Vonnegut, inspiring a cadre of characters who celebrate war and death. In his sardonic response to this vision of a Hemingwayesque world, Vonnegut espoused kindness and restraint as moral imperatives against the more violent yearnings of human nature, which Hemingway in turn embraced as stoic, virile, and heroic. Though their paths were radically different, Broer finds in both an overarching obsession with the scars of war as chief adversary in a personal quest for understanding and wholeness. He locates in each writer’s canon moments of spiritual awaking leading to literary evolution—if not outright reinvention. In their later works Broer detects an increasing recognition of redemptive feminine aspects in themselves and their protagonists, pulling against the destructively tragic fatalism that otherwise dominates their worldviews. Broer sees Vonnegut and Hemingway as fundamentally at war—with themselves, with one another’s artistic visions, and with the idea of war itself. Against this onslaught, he asserts, they wrote as a mode of therapy and achieved literary greatness through combative opposition to the shadows that loomed so large around them.

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395

Publisher

Univ of South Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1611171091

ISBN 13

9781611171099

Sanity Plea

Schizophrenia in the Novels of Kurt Vonnegut

By: Lawrence R. Broer

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Sanity Plea

Schizophrenia in the Novels of Kurt Vonnegut

By: Lawrence R. Broer

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

259

Publisher

University of Alabama Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0817307524

ISBN 13

9780817307523

Vonnegut & Hemingway

Writers at War

By: Lawrence R. Broer

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Vonnegut & Hemingway

Writers at War

By: Lawrence R. Broer

Average ratings

N/A

Write a review

Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

395

Publisher

Univ of South Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1611171091

ISBN 13

9781611171099

Book's by Lawrence R. Broer

Sanity Plea

Sanity Plea

Vonnegut & Hemingway

Vonnegut & Hemingway

Sanity Plea

Sanity Plea

Vonnegut & Hemingway

Vonnegut & Hemingway

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