I did my thesis on Vonnegut, years back. It dealt with Slaughterhouse-Five and Mother Night, a Lacanian reading of the identity politics in them. In other words, I'm one helluva big fan. And I can see what MarkAndrew was getting at, in terms of Vonnegut's willingness to be very straight forward about the bad situations his characters find themselves, but there is more to the stories than that sense of darkness. Much more. It always seemed to me that, most often, Vonnegut's characters found a certain comfort in accepting their rough times, and being able to look past the hurt they felt. Like Billy P. said, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.