Posted on 04/11/2007 10:25:32 PM PDT by LouD
NEW YORK -- Kurt Vonnegut, the novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle," died Wednesday at age 84, his wife said.
Mr. Vonnegut, who often marveled that he had lived so long despite his lifelong smoking habit, had suffered brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, according to his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Sympathies to his family.
Will his euylogy be delivered by Kilgore Trout?
An original mind, no doubt. RIP, Kurt.
NOW, now I can try to write a novel with semicolons! RIP Kurt, we’re all not far behind you.
Perhaps one of the greatest character names in literary history, Montana Wildhack...
I went to high school with a Vonnegut whose father, a drama teacher, local theater director, and one-time stage actor, was first cousin to Kurt Vonnegut. I knew quite a bit about him long before I ever read one of his books. I still see the cousin from time to time, must be well into his eighties himself.
Vonnegut, like many fictional authors, was clearly mentally disturbed. I’m not one of the kooks who likes to call any kind of popular literature anti-Christian, etc. I loved Vonnegut’s literature, but he clearly wasn’t completely right in the head. He truly hope he finds peace in the afterlife.
Whatever you might think of his politics, he was his own man. I would recommend “Harrison Bergeron,” a scathing attack on political correctness that was way ahead of its time, to today’s high school and college students as required reading.
His brother was on the staff at State University of New York at Albany.
I knew him, way back when....
I first heard about Kurt Vonnegut as an 8th grade student in a Catholic school; we read the local Catholic Review on Friday afternoons and I remember scanning the book and film reviews of “what Catholics should NOT be reading”. It wasn’t censorship or a book ban, just a gentle suggestion of things we might care to avoid as they might disturb our spiritual development.
Three or four years later I came across a copy of “Slaughterhouse Five”, I remembered the paper’s gentle suggestion and, of course, I read it.
I love Vonnegut’s stuff. It’s funny and absurd and crabby all at the same time. “Hocus Pocus” was probably my favorite.
When I was younger I always thought that the reason behind placing Vonnegut on the “not quite banned book list” was because of the author’s penchant for inappropriate sexual license. That’s pretty much the mind of a teenager at work. Now I realize that I would probably not want for my own children to be too heavily exposed to such musings at a young age. His work, while being funny, is also very dark and cynical. In fact, I suppose that I found the darkest and most cynical observations to be the points in his books that made me laugh out loud.
The world will make cynics of us soon enough. We need not to be encouraged by cranky atheists.
I hope and pray that Mr. Vonnegut woke up in the arms of our Savior this day. May he finally rest in peace.
God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut
I just loved him. I have known for the better part of my life that I was somehow connected to the author by some spoke of a big cosmic wheel.
Since my first reading of his novel ‘Cat’s Cradle’, I have been a fan — even to parts of my personality and sense of humor having formed by the reading of his works — I was more worth for what his passing waked. As comedian Jon Stewart said “He kept us sane during the 70’s”. (or something like that)
I didn’t always agree with him, his political/religious opinions, but I sure loved to read what he wrote.
My Back Yard
aka — for many many years, Ms. Rosewater
A Sad day indeed.
Tralfamadorian bump
Know anyone who is?
Aye, it was.
And so it goes. . . .
Know anyone who is?
The smiling guy in the “get a bigger penis” commercial on TV seems like he’s pretty much squared away in terms of mental health.
I think Bokonon will run the service.
What was I saying?
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