Kurt Vonnegut Trivia

1. What type of text appears several times throughout the book?

From Quiz Deadeye Dick

Answer: Recipes

Rudy spends a lot of time in the kitchen with the family servants as a child, as it is the only warm place in the house. He learns to cook and bake from Mary Hoobler, the family cook. This skill comes in handy later when his older brother Felix leaves home, the family are unable to keep the servants and Rudy has to take care of his parents, neither of whom can cook. Some of the recipes are Haitian, as Rudy and Felix are living in Haiti in the present day and have bought a hotel there, the Hotel Olofsson (a real place, where Vonnegut had stayed). In the author's note, Vonnegut describes the recipes as 'musical interludes for the salivary glands'. Although they are based on recipes from real cookery books, which Vonnegut notes every serious cook should own, he warns the reader not to try the recipes at home as he has tinkered around with the ingredients.

From Quiz Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

Answer: Wilbur Rockefeller Swain and Eliza Mellon Swain

Wilbur and Eliza's parents are young, rich and not very bright. They are repelled by their freakish children; both Eliza and Wilbur have polydactyly, extra nipples, and the prominent foreheads and jaws of Neanderthal humans. Mr and Mrs Swain's advisors tell them not to raise their children in the family home, believing that the children are mentally disabled and a liability, so Eliza and Wilbur are locked away in a mansion in an orchard, staffed by servants to watch over them.

From Quiz So you want to become a Bokononist?

Answer: It is folly to pretend to discover, to understand the will of God.

I must warn you Bokononism is outlawed in its birthplace, San Lorenzo and punishable by the 'hy-u-o-ook-kuh' (hook).There are no other punishments for stealing,arson or rape there is just the 'Hook', which equates to a very unpleasant and painful death. Needless to say there is next to no crime in San Lorenzo, except the covert practice of Bokononism, which everyone practices.

From Quiz Harrison Bergeron

Answer: Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche critiqued both Christianity and Egalitarianism in his philosophical works. Nietzsche's major themes include the will to power of living beings and the Übermensch. Nietzsche introduced the concept of the Übermensch in his book "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" in 1883. The Übermensch is essentially the advancement of humanity over time with the goal of achieving an ideal state.

From Quiz Slaughterhouse Five - Part III

Answer: A fuel test by a Tralfamadorian

The Tralfamadorians destroy the universe (including the Earth) by testing a new fuel for their flying saucers. Billy is shocked. "If you know this, isn't there some way you can prevent it? Can't you keep the pilot from pressing the button?" The response is oh-so-typical of an alien that sees in four dimensions: "He has ALWAYS pressed it, and he always WILL. We ALWAYS let him and we always WILL let him. The moment is STRUCTURED that way."

From Quiz Slaughterhouse-Five - Part II

Answer: American Bombers in World War II

Vonnegut's description is fantastic: "American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation." (And so on.)

From Quiz Slaughter-House Five - Part I

Answer: "Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?"

From the book: "What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that, too."

From Quiz God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut !

Answer: Billy Pilgrim

Billy Pilgrim, the midwestern boy who became a captured soldier in Germany during World War II, was the protagonist of Vonnegut's, "Slaughter House Five".

From Quiz "Happy Birthday, Wanda June"

Answer: Penelope

It was never produced under the name Penelope. Kurt Vonnegut's reason for the play's failure was that "it was a lousy play".

From Quiz Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan

Answer: a Chrono-Synclastic Infundibula

Along with his dog, Kazak, Winston flew into the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibula by accident only two days out from Mars. This resulted in the pair being spread not only through space but time as well. Winston materializes back at home only often enough to bother his wife.

From Quiz Isn't Kurt Vonnegut Brilliant?

Answer: Bermuda Ern

It's the Bermuda Ern...

From Quiz Slaughterhouse-Five

Answer: Billy Pilgrim

Billy Pilgrim is the central character. The others do not even appear in the book.

From Quiz Kurt Vonnegut and Co.

Answer: God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater

From Quiz Deadeye Dick

Answer: Peepholes closing

When a person is born, Rudy says that 'their peephole opened', and when they die, he says that 'their peephole closed'. He describes his birth as starting out as a 'wisp of undifferentiated nothingness' before becoming aware of light and sound. He gets the idea of peepholes from a black woman he meets in the cells at the local police station, who has been arrested for attacking a racist bus driver. She says that when she was born, her peephole just opened one day and she heard people saying, "That's a black one there. Unlucky to be black." When Rudy tells her that he accidentally shot a woman dead, she says, "You done closed a peephole."

From Quiz Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

Answer: They are actually highly intelligent

Eliza and Wilbur discover that there is a mansion hidden within the mansion, with hidden passages and stairways, and they are able to access the mausoleum of Professor Elihu Swain, the ancestor who built the mansion. They also discover copious amounts of books and sneak off to read them. However, in order to keep the servants in a job and make them feel like they are doing something worthwhile, the twins pretend to be mentally disabled and incapable of talking properly or behaving appropriately.

From Quiz So you want to become a Bokononist?

Answer: Ice-nine

Invented to solidify mud and thereby make fighting wars much less unpleasant. There is however one nasty drawback - Ice-nine has the potential to freeze all the water in all the puddles and streams, rivers and oceans and oh yes, us too.

From Quiz Harrison Bergeron

Answer: 2081

The first two lines of "Harrison Bergeron" read: "The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law".

From Quiz Slaughterhouse Five - Part III

Answer: They ignore them

They ignore the wars and focus on good times, the zoo guide tells Billy. "That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones." His words of course are quite different from what they mean to us. The Tralfamadorians don't really live in any one time.

From Quiz Slaughter-House Five - Part I

Answer: The Children's Crusade

The narrator promised Mary O'Hare he would call any such book about the war this. It eased her temperment.

From Quiz God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut !

Answer: Dresden

Vonnegut's captivity had him witness the horrific bombing of Dresden, Gemany by allied planes in 1945. The city, which supposedly was constructed mostly from wood, erupted in a violent firestorm as a result of the bombing.

From Quiz "Happy Birthday, Wanda June"

Answer: The Odyssey

One of the central characters, Harold Ryan, was modeled as a modern- day Odysseus.

From Quiz Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan

Answer: Magnum Opus

Noel Constant began Magnum Opus by buying shares that matched the letters of the words of The Bible. his first investment was in International Nitrate. His business advisor considered him the luckiest man on Earth.

From Quiz Isn't Kurt Vonnegut Brilliant?

Answer: Cohoes

He lives in Cohoes. Billy Pilgrim's from Ilium, and Scipio and Athena are where the action in 'Hocus Pocus' mostly takes place.

From Quiz Slaughterhouse-Five

Answer: Optometrist

Billy was a soldier for a period of time, but his profession was optometry.

From Quiz Kurt Vonnegut and Co.

Answer: Galapagos

There are asterisks beside all of the characters who will die throughout the book.

From Quiz Deadeye Dick

Answer: Adolf Hitler

In his youth, Otto Waltz had met Hitler in Vienna while studying art and bought one of his paintings. After Hitler becomes Chancellor in 1933, the Waltzes (minus Rudy) go to visit him and he gives them a Nazi flag, which Otto flies from the weathervane, although he eventually takes it down when the US goes to war with Germany. He also has a Hitler Youth uniform made for Felix and expects Felix and his friends - one of whom is Jewish - to greet him with 'Heil Hitler', although by the time Rudy is older, Otto has stopped praising Hitler as it is making local people angry. The painting owned by the Waltzes, 'Minorite Chapel', is a real painting by Hitler.

From Quiz Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

Answer: "I hate them, I hate them, I hate them."

Wilbur and Eliza spy on their parents through a hole in the wall of the library, and hear Mrs Swain saying she hates them, and calling then 'Count Dracula and his blushing bride' and 'a pair of drooling totem poles'. They decide to reveal their true personalities to their parents, but their parents are unable to cope with this revelation, so Eliza and Wilbur revert to pretending to be mentally disabled. Wilbur thinks their parents cannot handle the fact that two monstrous creatures are asking to be treated with respect.

From Quiz So you want to become a Bokononist?

Answer: The tendrils of a life

I understand these' tendrils' to be the invisible forces that bind us together and tie us to our 'wampeter'. In chapter four, Mr Vonnegut describes his experience with 'sinookas' as a "Tentative Tangling of Tendrils". Beyond these descriptions one must experience the pull of a 'sinooka' to fully understand one.

From Quiz Harrison Bergeron

Answer: 211, 212 & 213

One can only wonder what exactly the 211th, 212th and 213th Amendments to the Constitution stated in Vonnegut's short story. I wonder what the 28th to 210th Amendments were about as well.

From Quiz Slaughterhouse Five - Part III

Answer: He had seen the future

To quote from the book: "He had already seen a lot of their marriage, thanks to time-travel, knew that it was going to be at least bearable all the way."

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