Listen to free audiobook with a 30 day free trial :https://esound.space/audibleTitle: We Are What We Pretend to BeAuthor: Kurt VonnegutNarrator: Colin Hanks, Oliver Wyman, Suzanne TorenFormat: UnabridgedLength: 4 hrs and 29 minsLanguage: EnglishRelease date: 10-09-12Publisher: Audible StudiosGenres: Fiction, HumorSummary:Called our finest black-humorist by The Atlantic Monthly, Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Now his first and last works come together for the first time in print, in a collection aptly titled after his famous phrase, We Are What We Pretend To Be.Written to be sold under the pseudonym of Mark Harvey, Basic Training was never published in Vonneguts lifetime. It appears to have been written in the late 1940s and is therefore Vonneguts first ever novella. It is a bitter, profoundly disenchanted story that satirizes the military, authoritarianism, gender relationships, parenthood, and most of the assumed mid-century myths of the family. Haley Brandon, the adolescent protagonist, comes to the farm of his relative, the old crazy who insists upon being called The General, to learn to be a straight-shooting American. Haleys only means of survival will lead him to unflagging defiance of the Generals deranged (but oh so American, oh so military) values. This story and its 30ish author were no friends of the milieu to which the slick magazines advertisers were pitching their products.When Vonnegut passed away in 2007, he left his last novel unfinished. Entitled If God Were Alive Today, this last work is a brutal satire on societal ignorance and carefree denial of the worlds major problems. Protagonist Gil Berman is a middle-aged college lecturer and self-declared stand-up comedian who enjoys cracking jokes in front of a college audience while societal dependence on fossil fuels has led to the apocalypse. Described by Vonnegut as, the stand-up comedian on Doomsday, Gil is a character formed from Vonneguts own rich experiences living in a reality Vonnegut himself considered inevitable.Along with the two works of fiction, Vonneguts daughter, Nanette shares reminiscences about her father and commentary on these two works - both exclusive to this edition. In this fiction collection, published in print for the first time, exist Vonneguts grand themes: trust no one, trust nothing; and the only constants are absurdity and resignation, which themselves cannot protect us from the void but might divert.Contact: [email protected]

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