His nonfiction works — including
Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (Opinions) (1974),
Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage (1981), and
Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s (1991) — underline his role as an American literary icon and respected social observer, and he frequently is sought out for speeches, interviews, and commentary.
Vonnegut has come to be recognized as a thoughtful social critic who ponders the impact of technology, science, and social behavior. A skeptical observer with a light touch, he charms and amuses readers with his humor and irreverence while unflinchingly exposing the foibles of society. The technique in much of his work may be characterized as postmodern; rather than revering classical prose models, it instead uses choppy, vernacular sentences and deemphasizes traditional conventions of plot, theme, time, and character development. Like postmodern buildings, which may unite the architecture of disparate styles and eras, his novels combine comedy with pathos, fantasy with history, and didacticism with farce. Such forms as poetry, science fiction, satire, drama, graffiti, lyrics, drawings, and even recipes appear in the novels. They deconstruct the social myths on which society often thoughtlessly runs and repeatedly defamiliarize the commonplace daily world to make their audience reexamine its habits of thinking.
