Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007
If I had to name an author that properly reporesented my home state, it would be… Jean Shepherd.
Vonnegut was a hoosier in the way Letterman was a hoosier- only until he could get the hell out. Yeah, that’s true of Shepherd too, but while he was here he slipped the surly bonds of the planet, not the state.
Vonnegut wrote some interesting books, but he was a pacifist asshole, even though he had seen the stupidity pacifism drags in it’s wake firsthand.
I could never wish ill on the man, he entertained me for a good deal of my youth. I hope he went without undue pain. I’m glad for the navel-gazing he helped me do in my younger years. I’m sure for years to come, hippies will be reading his shit and smoking dope and protesting war in all it’s forms.
Rest in peace, Kilgore.
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I loved Vonnegut in my youth. Then I grew up and realized he was full of crap, self-righteous crap at that.
He won’t be missed except by the “reality-based” community.
He was offered up two things that were timelessly right. Both the short story I referenced last month, Harrison Bergeron, and one sobering novel, Mother Night.
These could be the only two products of his that a conservative might find still find valuable. Even a broke clock etc.
I think he once aimed to be remembered not as Kilgore Trout, but as the “holy man” of Cat’s Cradle (I think whose name was something like Becomen) who killed himself by freezing. On the highest mountain of a tropical paradise. Deliberately frozen in a pose: telling heaven to kiss his ass.
I’m so sorry if he never repented of what hoosierboy only scratched the surface of describing.
BTW, I once stumbled upon HOW Vonnegut came upon the idea for Cat’s Cradle Ice-Nine.
bokonon, pf. And he writes in the book how he gets the idea.
No, I meant the actual ad he placed for GE, and what series of things were next to it, a sequence that he never mentioned in the book. Where I found it. The happenstance.
I’m off to fly.
yes, pascal, he mentions ge and the ad in the book.
I think the most entertainment I got from Vonnegut was in Rodney Dangerfield’s movie “Back to School” when Rodney gets busted for having Vonnegut write his essay… about Vonnegut. The teacher slams him saying “I don’t know who you paid to write this, but he doesn’t know a damn thing about Kurt Vonnegut….”
Classic.
vonnegut loved me. He even let me lick his asshole sometimes. His roids were like candy to me.
I’m planning to line the cat box with today’s Indianapolis Star, personally.
With the Varvel cartoon facing out and up.
I read Slaughterhouse Five.
Didn’t get it.
Never read another of his novels.