RIP, Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

[Michael P]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/books/11cnd-vonnegut.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Son of a bitch. Another of my heroes dead before I ever got to meet him.

[Subotai]

Goddamn. You're not alone.

[divinebrown]

Damn.

I remember reading him for the first time as a freshman in college (Slaughterhouse Five). He was pretty much all I read for the rest of that year.

"God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" is my favorite.

[Jonathan Bogart]

This took me by surprise more than it probably should have. Maybe it's because I never really got around to reading him; you figure there'll always be time for the living. Which, is, of course, entirely wrong. It's the dead who have all the time in the world.

Clear another seat in the pantheon.

[Punch]

Huge influence on my work.
Breakfast Of Champions is my favorite book of his.
So it goes.

[Cyke]

I'd be sad, but the guy's already emerged as one of THE top writers of our time. He's made his mark on the world, and the planet and its future is that much better because of it.

*cue standing ovation for this writer of writers*

[rick]

So it goes.

Hi Ho.

[Ilash]

Wow, and I just finished Cat's Cradle, the first book I've ever read by him, two days ago. A really great writer.

[Papa Moai]

That is truly sad news. He'll be missed.


"When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is ‘So it goes’.”

[twilight]

Shit.
I was looking longingly at a copy of Sirens of Titan the other day too.

R.I.P. Kurt.

[Lord of Nonsensical Crap]

So it goes.

RIP, Kurt.

[ultramandingo]

bad signal
WARREN ELLIS

To forestall another hundred emails
on the topic: yes, I know Kurt
Vonnegut is dead. Weird, really --
on Monday I received a test
mechanical of the CROOKED LITTLE
VEIN slipcover, upon which I am
inexplicably likened to Vonnegut.

(Happily, the cover also preserves
the Kinky Friedman quote wherein
he describes the book as "funny
enough to make you shit standing.")

I have writer's disease with Vonnegut:
was always afraid that if I read too
much of him, I'd end up sounding like
him. Like Thompson, his deceptively
relaxed, rhythmic colloquial style is
too appealing to me. Lots of news
stories are using a quote from "God
Bless You, Mr Rosewater," and its
bitter music is completely seductive.

14 novels in 84 years. 30 when he
published his first novel. Two years
older than I am now when he did
"Cat's Cradle." 46 or thereabouts
when he wrote "Slaughterhouse-5."
Still in his early 20s, working as a
POW in an underground factory,
when we firebombed Dresden, an
act he later described as "a work of
art." 1984, and Vonnegut attempts suicide with booze and pills,
ruefully
noting later that "I botched it." May 1944, and his mother Edith gets
it right.
Six months later Vonnegut is captured by the German army after days
wandering
alone in the countryside.

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in
the
winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies,
you’ve got about a
hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies —
'God damn
it, you’ve got to be kind.'"

---
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[Inkthinker]

I know what Ellis means by the seduction of his colloquial style. It's powerful stuff, but it came from a man who did some powerful thinking.

The only part that really, really depresses me is that he seems so right, so often, and in that sense he makes the world both brutally depressing and brilliantly funny.

Often things that are true are also really painful. Vonnegut never shied from that, and I wish more people would be inspired to follow his example... this might be a better place after all.