Kurt Vonnegut died today...or yesterday, I guess.

I knew it was going to happen someday...he was 84 for gosh sakes. Still, I'm sad today.

There was no writer I admired more. I think I'm going to start rereading his stuff tomorrow.

That makes me almost as sad as when Hunter S. Thomson died.

There goes the last great american writer

Good show, Kurt. Rest in Peace.

*sigh* I idolized that man. Check that - still do and always will.

So it goes.

I agree - good show. Rest in peace.

junoblairb
So it goes.

Dammit! THat's just what I was thinking... Back to Tralfamadore.

I got into Vonnegut's work a couple of years ago with "Cat's Cradle". Vonnegut was a master of humor in the most humorless of situations. He really makes the reader understand that there's not much point to anything and that's what makes life hilarious.

Kind of like Hemingway, only he liked everything to be done with dignity. Vonnegut's philosophy was more like "Fuck it, we're all gonna die so we might as well laugh."

wow i wanna be unique too!!

*says something nice about this guy*

ozoneocean

junoblairb
So it goes.

Dammit! THat's just what I was thinking... Back to Tralfamadore.

One of my first "Real" art peices was a tralfamdorian (spelling)... hard to get a complete life cycle of a plunger with a hamburger helper head on paper though.. ;)

I didn't discover Kurt until later in my life... but I'm glad I got to "know him".

So it goes.

Slaughter House 5 was one of my favorite books. I gotta read more from this guy. At least it wasn't tragic like Hunter's suicide.

He because slightly unstruck in time, saw the late movie backwards then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story goes like this:
American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from the airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for the wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation. The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathering them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored in neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and flames. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken back from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them in the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anyone again.
The Americans fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. and Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed.

Damn, I don't think I ever read that book. I have to read it now. Brilliant passage!

That's the mastery of Vonnegut's writing. He writes about things that are so absurd, yet at the same time on another level you think "That's the way things should be..."

ccs1989
Damn, I don't think I ever read that book. I have to read it now. Brilliant passage!

That's the mastery of Vonnegut's writing. He writes about things that are so absurd, yet at the same time on another level you think "That's the way things should be..."

Slaughter House 5 was my first Kurt experience. At first I didn't think I'd like the book. The war descriptions got long at the beginning and though it was fascinating, I wasn't in the mood for a war book.

But then, it got in to the alien captivity and stuff and just went crazy. Well worth the read if not for any other reason than hearing the Tralfamadorian (spelling) view on life and time which pops into the book periodically.

Shout out to Chuuuuuck!

I never had a living grandfather. The closest I ever got to that were my 'spiritual', metaphorical grandfathers--men like Jack Kirby, Philip K. Dick, Hunter Thompson, Gil Kane, Joseph Campbell, Will Eisner, Alex Toth and Kurt Vonnegut. I met and talked to four out of those eight, and we were kindred. I cried like a baby about all of them, when they passed, but Vonnegut was a special case--no other creator is more responsible for shaping my politics and morality than he. I'll never get to meet him.

I've been loyal to the very end, and have read literally everything by him in print. Slapstick was my first Vonnegut novel, when I was about fifteen--I proceeded to read it about twelve times, in less than six months (it's short). I love Slaughterhouse Five (I also recommend the movie), but I'd have to say that Breakfast of Champions is my favorite (I DON'T recommend the movie--I DO recommend Mother Night though). Generally, you just can't go wrong, when you pick up one of his books.

Whats worse is people I hate are still alive. WHY GOD!

I finished re-reading Slaughterhouse Five. Awesome.

Now, I'm re-reading Galapagos. It's as great as I remember too.

Galapagos was just plain weird. I can't remember if I ever finished reading it.

Breakfast of Champions is brilliant though. I like how Vonnegut puts himself into the book.

Here's one of my favorite quotes from Galapagos by K. Von.:

(Talking as a man with a smaller than homosapiens' brains from millions of years in the future reflecting on the beginnings of "his" race)
...Mere opinions, in fact, were as likely to govern people's actions as hard evidence, and were subject to sudden reversals as hard evidence could never be... Julius Caesar could be a statesman in one moment and a butcher in the next... and the universe could be created by God Almighty in one moment and by a big explosion in the next - and on and on. Thanks to their decreased brainpower (he's talking about homosapiens here), people aren't diverted form the main business of life by the hobgoblins of opinions anymore.

Isn't that great? I love it. Anyways...

Sorry if there's any typos... I was typing and reading and didn't bother to go back and spell check.

I'll probably re-read the entire K. Von. library in the next few weeks just because his death inspired me to revisit his works.

Yay. So it goes.
~Jerome~