I remember my first encounter with Kurt Vonnegut. I was in tenth grade English class when we read his short story, Harrison Bergeron. I was immediately mesmerized. He was the type of person you'd shoosh others to hear if he appeared on television. He was a sage and a humorist. I believe the world loses something extremely precious when a comedian or humorist dies--especially as the world gets more serious and the laughs spaced further apart.The world has lost so much more with the passing of Kurt Vonnegut. He wasn't just a humorist, but a perceptive satire writer and wise man who understood the human condition in all its absurdity--particularly, the absurdity of war. He understood irony acutely and was more than able to point out our ever-increasing hypocrisies in our human endeavors and relationships. He was living proof that close confrontation with tragedy and evil can make a person wise beyond measure having been shaped by his experience as a POW in World War II and witnessing the total annhilation of Dresden and having to help dispose of the bodies for mass burial. He was recently critical of the Bush Administration in his book A Man Without a Country.
Most people are aware of Vonnegut's writing, but few know of his graphic art. Here is a link with samples.
Trout 44I find it strange that a student gave me a Kurt Vonnegut book only last week and here I am writing my reaction to his death. It seems very Vonnegut. I will miss him for his satire and dark humor, his sage wisdom, his political and anthropological awareness, and his spirit of defiance. There is a gaping hole in the literary world today that may never be filled.
Here is an NPR interview with Vonnegut from January, 2006.
His regular website was closed today (vonnegut.com) and had merely a splash page of the following image with the dates of the span of his life....
This bird has flown.
