Dan Smith
Non-native speakers who've read Kurt Vonnegut: is his writing easy or hard to understand?

People often ask for book recommendations on italki, and I never know what to say because I don't usually notice whether books are in easy or difficult English. 

I'm starting to read a novel by Kurt Vonnegut--"Galápagos"--and it occurred to me that the actual English in his books seems to be structured in a plain and simple way. However, of course, he uses a lot of ironic humor and cultural references.

One example of his writing that can be found online at no cost is a short story, entitled "2 B R 0 2 B,"

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/21279/21279-h/21279-h.htm

Jan 7, 2017 11:12 PM
Comments · 3
I read "Mother Night" in 11th grade. I can't remember any difficulty to understand it.
January 8, 2017
I read "Slaughterhouse-five" as a teenager and I don´t think I liked it back then, maybe I was not ready to read him,  so I didn´t keep track of Vonnegut but recently I watched a documentary about him which made me curious about his books. Thanks for the link Dan!
January 8, 2017
I don't remember the name of Kurt Vonnegut but I have read "2BR02B". The book is quite interesting and didn't have any difficulty understanding. If I missed some cultural references I wouldn't know.
January 7, 2017