6 ms·

An Interview with Robert Caro and Kurt Vonnegut (1999)

107 points by cocacola1 2y ago

baxtr 2y ago
I highly recommend “Working” by Robert Caro, his latest book. It’s an excellent book to start with if you want to get an exposure to his way of working and his thinking.
- cocacola1 2y ago
  I second the recommendation. Can easily be read in a single sitting.
- pjmorris 2y ago
  Agreed. It's a short read that demonstrates his writing skill, his methods, and his goal of explaining how political power is acquired and used. It inspired me to start on the LBJ biography.
  - 39896880 2y ago
    Be careful with the LBJ series. It will absolutely ruin all other biographies for you. You will become intolerant to other authors’ lack of detail.
    - MOARDONGZPLZ 2y ago
      Not to mention (though I am), awaiting the last installment!
      - misiti3780 2y ago
        Me too, Robert Gottlieb died in 2022, hopefully the last book gets finished and is as good.
    - misiti3780 2y ago
      It's incredible how good those books are, and I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who hasn't experienced them. I read them over two years ago and still remember many details as if I read them yesterday. This is quite rare for me, given how much I read. Strangely, I didn’t have the same experience with "The Power Broker." Ever since finishing them, I have been on the hunt for historical biographies of similar quality. While I haven't found any that match up completely, here are a few that come close in my opinion: * Truman by David McCullough * Grant by Ron Chernow * American Caesar by William Manchester I've also read the three-part Churchill series by Manchester, but it didn’t quite measure up to the LBJ series for me. If you have any other suggestions, please share them! My brother in law loves Vonnegut, I read all of his books also. Personally, I don't understand the appeal
      - pjmorris 2y ago
        I loved the Manchester series on Churchill. The others you mention are all on the 'to read' list for me already. My favorite recent biography was on both JCR Licklider and the world he helped create; 'The Dream Machine', Waldrop. Even more abstract, 'The Prize', Yergin, might be called a biography of the oil industry and 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb' is a biograpy of that dread beast. Those were my favorite books before starting Caro.
        misiti3780 2y ago
        The Dream Machine and The Prize are on my kindle. I really enjoyed The Making of the Atomic Bomb also!
      - BigParm 2y ago
        If you like history, have you read "From the Founding of the City"? It's slow to start as the Romans fight the same Veientes a hundred times over, but when it's good, it's really good. The stories are historic so there are realistic lessons in them. It's interesting as a working class person to read how the plebs were able to take some power from the owning class, for example. The battles are tactical. The heroes are epic. The highs are very high and the lows very low. Anyways it was preserved on paper 2000 years for a reason. It's unbelievably good.
    - vr46 2y ago
      +1 for Taylor Branch’s three-volume biography of the Martin Luther King years, outstanding.
- misiti3780 2y ago
  The documentary "Turn every page" was great also. Sad to see his editor died last year.
readthenotes1 2y ago
Power doesn't corrupt, it reveals -Robert Caro One of my favorite insights, ever. I also like the line in there or Vonnegut and Caro agree that 4 to 5 hours a day is the max you can truly focus.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Spooky23 2y ago
  More amazing is how Caro paints the picture that really proves the point. LBJ was a despicable human being in many ways. But, he truly believed in civil rights and making life better for ordinary people. Caro captures the toil of the hill country farm wife and the oppression of Mexican-Texans — and what Johnson did for them — vividly. Moses was almost the opposite. He built an idealist vision in the 1920s… and never evolved. As his power peaked, he did not understand why people were against him after what he had done for “the people”.
- cmiles74 2y ago
  Vonnegut said a couple of things struck a chord with me: "Novelists are famous as being lousy mates, whether males or females, and one reason is that they have to concentrate all the time or they’ll lose the thread of the novel. It’s all in the head, and they have information pouring in from the outside they’re going to lose and so they will pretend to hear you, but they’re really some- where else." Later on he says... "It’s nowhere else and so they don’t want to lose it and if you interrupt a novelist it’s a disaster for him." Maybe software developers and novelists have some inner workings in common!
  - datavirtue 2y ago
    I think very much so. Certainly not your work-a-day Jirs-story muncher, but when you hole away building a new concept that turns into a commitment you emerge a year later having lived and breathed that software for 12-16 hours a day you understand what it's like. When you take breaks it's to do some creative thinking. You never really stop but to eat, sleep, and... drink.
kayo_20211030 2y ago
Two of Caro's books remain in my favorites today: The Power Broker; and Master of the Senate. The concept of political power, mentioned in the conversation, is fully limned out in both of them. Worth reading by anyone with an interest in how the real world works. Unfortunately, Vonnegut, I never quite got. YMMV.
- slothtrop 2y ago
  I'm a fan of both Caro and Vonnegut, prefer some of his novels over others. Cat's Cradle is my favorite.
  - skeeter2020 2y ago
    Player Piano and Sirens of Titan were the options when I was in high school. I can't remember which I read first but I liked it so much I begged to borrow a copy and read the other. I've never agreed with a lot of his viewpoints, and Vonnegut was (like all of us) a flawed human being, but his writing transcended a lot of that, which is somewhat odd because it's so incredibly personal. That contradiction probably says more about me than him.
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  t'other way about for me. I love Vonnegut loads so I read it, but discovered an American writer/reporter that I never heard of. Most interesting. Particularly that theme where idealists seek power to achieve objectives independently of functional democracy; it seems human, vital, problematic and American - all in a wholly positive way - but clearly different cultures have different takes on power and where the limits of 'visionaries' ought to be.
- fredgrott 2y ago
  Vonnegut was that soldier described in some of his stories...WII prisoner during Dresden Germany fire bombing....his painting art is treasure as well.
- thimkerbell 2y ago
  (Meaning 2 of "limn" is "to outline in clear sharp detail", but as it is not Meaning 1,this is fine.)
dang 2y ago
Related: Robert Caro and Kurt Vonnegut interview each other (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26018824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26018824 - Feb 2021 (46 comments)
082349872349872 2y ago
> Well, you stand outside a society and a culture and realize that it is an invention and that you can improve it. Well, I like the American culture, such as it is, but let ‘s get rid of the fucking guns. —KV So, it's relatively easy to find out that the US currently has about ~120 civilian firearms for every 100 people, but how does that number compare with whatever it was in 1999, when Vonnegut said the above?
- harshreality 2y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/01/business/coronavirus-gun-sales.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/01/business/coro... Guns per person has gone up significantly. A wild guess might be 20-40%, but exact estimates are difficult. Sales are tracked and have gone way up, which is the starting point for estimating change in guns per person, but difficulty in estimating and combining all the factors makes it difficult to integrate. (Most states don't track ownership, background checks aren't 1:1 with guns, gun purchase stats depending on how they're reported might include used guns, guns manufactured aren't necessarily going to civilians, and of course some guns are permanently lost or destroyed, or taken out of the country.)
  - ks2048 2y ago
    My understanding is guns per person has gone up significantly, but percentage of people who own guns has not. Which means some people of LOTS of guns.
    - quartesixte 2y ago
      Partially what seems to drive this upward trend is how many KINDS of guns you can own now. Gun collecting now can become a hobby itself, owning many different variants of ARs, Glocks, 1911 clones, etc. Add to that the new thing of owning a gun PER location. SO CCW + Car Gun + House Gun. It can add up quite quickly. Even for your "average" gun owner.
      - 082349872349872 2y ago

107 points by cocacola1 2y ago

I highly recommend “Working” by Robert Caro, his latest book. It’s an excellent book to start with if you want to get an exposure to his way of working and his thinking.

cocacola1 2y ago
I second the recommendation. Can easily be read in a single sitting.
pjmorris 2y ago
Agreed. It's a short read that demonstrates his writing skill, his methods, and his goal of explaining how political power is acquired and used. It inspired me to start on the LBJ biography.
- 39896880 2y ago
  Be careful with the LBJ series. It will absolutely ruin all other biographies for you. You will become intolerant to other authors’ lack of detail.
  - MOARDONGZPLZ 2y ago
    Not to mention (though I am), awaiting the last installment!
    - misiti3780 2y ago
      Me too, Robert Gottlieb died in 2022, hopefully the last book gets finished and is as good.
  - misiti3780 2y ago
    It's incredible how good those books are, and I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who hasn't experienced them. I read them over two years ago and still remember many details as if I read them yesterday. This is quite rare for me, given how much I read. Strangely, I didn’t have the same experience with "The Power Broker." Ever since finishing them, I have been on the hunt for historical biographies of similar quality. While I haven't found any that match up completely, here are a few that come close in my opinion: * Truman by David McCullough * Grant by Ron Chernow * American Caesar by William Manchester I've also read the three-part Churchill series by Manchester, but it didn’t quite measure up to the LBJ series for me. If you have any other suggestions, please share them! My brother in law loves Vonnegut, I read all of his books also. Personally, I don't understand the appeal
    - pjmorris 2y ago
      I loved the Manchester series on Churchill. The others you mention are all on the 'to read' list for me already. My favorite recent biography was on both JCR Licklider and the world he helped create; 'The Dream Machine', Waldrop. Even more abstract, 'The Prize', Yergin, might be called a biography of the oil industry and 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb' is a biograpy of that dread beast. Those were my favorite books before starting Caro.
      - misiti3780 2y ago
        The Dream Machine and The Prize are on my kindle. I really enjoyed The Making of the Atomic Bomb also!
    - BigParm 2y ago
      If you like history, have you read "From the Founding of the City"? It's slow to start as the Romans fight the same Veientes a hundred times over, but when it's good, it's really good. The stories are historic so there are realistic lessons in them. It's interesting as a working class person to read how the plebs were able to take some power from the owning class, for example. The battles are tactical. The heroes are epic. The highs are very high and the lows very low. Anyways it was preserved on paper 2000 years for a reason. It's unbelievably good.
  - vr46 2y ago
    +1 for Taylor Branch’s three-volume biography of the Martin Luther King years, outstanding.
misiti3780 2y ago
The documentary "Turn every page" was great also. Sad to see his editor died last year.

readthenotes1 2y ago

Power doesn't corrupt, it reveals -Robert Caro One of my favorite insights, ever. I also like the line in there or Vonnegut and Caro agree that 4 to 5 hours a day is the max you can truly focus.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Spooky23 2y ago
More amazing is how Caro paints the picture that really proves the point. LBJ was a despicable human being in many ways. But, he truly believed in civil rights and making life better for ordinary people. Caro captures the toil of the hill country farm wife and the oppression of Mexican-Texans — and what Johnson did for them — vividly. Moses was almost the opposite. He built an idealist vision in the 1920s… and never evolved. As his power peaked, he did not understand why people were against him after what he had done for “the people”.
cmiles74 2y ago
Vonnegut said a couple of things struck a chord with me: "Novelists are famous as being lousy mates, whether males or females, and one reason is that they have to concentrate all the time or they’ll lose the thread of the novel. It’s all in the head, and they have information pouring in from the outside they’re going to lose and so they will pretend to hear you, but they’re really some- where else." Later on he says... "It’s nowhere else and so they don’t want to lose it and if you interrupt a novelist it’s a disaster for him." Maybe software developers and novelists have some inner workings in common!
- datavirtue 2y ago
  I think very much so. Certainly not your work-a-day Jirs-story muncher, but when you hole away building a new concept that turns into a commitment you emerge a year later having lived and breathed that software for 12-16 hours a day you understand what it's like. When you take breaks it's to do some creative thinking. You never really stop but to eat, sleep, and... drink.

kayo_20211030 2y ago

Two of Caro's books remain in my favorites today: The Power Broker; and Master of the Senate. The concept of political power, mentioned in the conversation, is fully limned out in both of them. Worth reading by anyone with an interest in how the real world works. Unfortunately, Vonnegut, I never quite got. YMMV.

slothtrop 2y ago
I'm a fan of both Caro and Vonnegut, prefer some of his novels over others. Cat's Cradle is my favorite.
- skeeter2020 2y ago
  Player Piano and Sirens of Titan were the options when I was in high school. I can't remember which I read first but I liked it so much I begged to borrow a copy and read the other. I've never agreed with a lot of his viewpoints, and Vonnegut was (like all of us) a flawed human being, but his writing transcended a lot of that, which is somewhat odd because it's so incredibly personal. That contradiction probably says more about me than him.
nonrandomstring 2y ago
t'other way about for me. I love Vonnegut loads so I read it, but discovered an American writer/reporter that I never heard of. Most interesting. Particularly that theme where idealists seek power to achieve objectives independently of functional democracy; it seems human, vital, problematic and American - all in a wholly positive way - but clearly different cultures have different takes on power and where the limits of 'visionaries' ought to be.
fredgrott 2y ago
Vonnegut was that soldier described in some of his stories...WII prisoner during Dresden Germany fire bombing....his painting art is treasure as well.
thimkerbell 2y ago
(Meaning 2 of "limn" is "to outline in clear sharp detail", but as it is not Meaning 1,this is fine.)

dang 2y ago

Related: Robert Caro and Kurt Vonnegut interview each other (1999) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26018824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26018824 - Feb 2021 (46 comments)

082349872349872 2y ago

> Well, you stand outside a society and a culture and realize that it is an invention and that you can improve it. Well, I like the American culture, such as it is, but let ‘s get rid of the fucking guns. —KV So, it's relatively easy to find out that the US currently has about ~120 civilian firearms for every 100 people, but how does that number compare with whatever it was in 1999, when Vonnegut said the above?

harshreality 2y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/01/business/coronavirus-gun-sales.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/01/business/coro... Guns per person has gone up significantly. A wild guess might be 20-40%, but exact estimates are difficult. Sales are tracked and have gone way up, which is the starting point for estimating change in guns per person, but difficulty in estimating and combining all the factors makes it difficult to integrate. (Most states don't track ownership, background checks aren't 1:1 with guns, gun purchase stats depending on how they're reported might include used guns, guns manufactured aren't necessarily going to civilians, and of course some guns are permanently lost or destroyed, or taken out of the country.)
- ks2048 2y ago
  My understanding is guns per person has gone up significantly, but percentage of people who own guns has not. Which means some people of LOTS of guns.
  - quartesixte 2y ago
    Partially what seems to drive this upward trend is how many KINDS of guns you can own now. Gun collecting now can become a hobby itself, owning many different variants of ARs, Glocks, 1911 clones, etc. Add to that the new thing of owning a gun PER location. SO CCW + Car Gun + House Gun. It can add up quite quickly. Even for your "average" gun owner.
    - 082349872349872 2y ago