By Pam Walatka

Imagine sitting by the fire, talking to an old friend. That’s the mood of “A Man Without a Country” by Kurt Vonnegut (Seven Stories Press, 2005). He has the talent of writing as though he were speaking casually to an acquaintance.

In this new, small hardback, Vonnegut, one of the grand masters of American literature, chats about a variety of subjects.

His best segment is his riff on how people need a lot of people to talk to. “Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to. … When a couple has an argument nowadays … what they’re really saying … is this: ‘You are not enough people!’… And I would really, over the long run, hope America would find some way to provide all of our citizens with extended families - a large group of people they could call on for help.”

Vonnegut loves to talk to people. He mentions going out to buy an envelope and stamps, talking to people while he stands in line and ends the chapter wit “WE ARE HERE ON EARTH TO FART AROUND. DON’T LET ANYBODY TELL YOU ANY DIFFERENT.”

He is a humanist, perhaps the preeminent humanist, and honorary president of the American Humanist Association. He quotes his son answering the question, “What is life all about?” with this response: “We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.”

Vonnegut writes about his Uncle Alex: “He was well read and wise. His principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’”

Imagine yourself by the fire again, listening to your friend, and he tells you that he is losing one of his most important faculties. Vonnegut claims to be losing his sense of humor. “I now give up on people.” He continues, “I used to be funny and perhaps I’m not anymore. There may have been so many shocks and disappointments that the defense of humor no longer works. It may be that I have become rather grumpy because I’ve seen so many things that offended me that I cannot deal with in terms of humor.”

His sense of humor is not completely gone. He offers this joke: “What is the white stuff in bird poop?” “That’s bird poop, too.”

He has never been addicted to anything except tobacco: “I am, of course, notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.”

He studied chemistry in college and includes technology in his books: “I think that novels that leave out technology misrepresent life as badly as Victorians misrepresented life by leaving out sex.”

Vonnegut, who could pick any publisher he wanted, chose a small literary press. The editing and proofreading are flawless, but the print job is amateurish; much of the type is “broken.” The size, shape, layout and materials of the book are great. It’s a good book to hold, and to hold onto: Vonnegut is still charming and funny.

“A Man Without a Country” is available at Main Street Cafe & Books, 134 Main St.