Kurt Vonnegut Dies At Age 84
When I was growing up, reading Kurt Vonnegut was the subversive thing to do. I read a lot of his writings for a number of years. Although I came to disagree with a lot of his ideas, it is still with regret that I note his passing today.
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, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.
The author of at least 19 novels, many of them best-sellers, as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays, Vonnegut relished the role of a social critic. He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.
"I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations," Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.
A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view. He also filled his novels with satirical commentary and even drawings that were only loosely connected to the plot. In "Slaughterhouse-Five," he drew a headstone with the epitaph: "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."
But much in his life was traumatic, and left him in pain.
Rest in peace, Kurt. May your journey to Tralfamadore ease your pain at last.
UPDATE: NYT coverage here.
Other Links to this Post
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Kurt Vonnegut Dies at Age 84 « Michael P.F. van der Galiën — Thursday, 12 April , 2007 @ 2:48 am
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Kurt Vonnegut, R.I.P. » The American Mind — Thursday, 12 April , 2007 @ 10:49 am
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Maggie's Farm — Thursday, 12 April , 2007 @ 6:01 pm
By Chris, Thursday, 12 April , 2007 @ 5:08 pm
I, too, mourn his passing. He had a gift for satire, which is rare. Godspeed, indeed.