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April 12, 2007
Kurt Vonnegut -- Busy, Busy, Busy No More
Well, Kurt Vonnegut is no longer with us. Sigh.
He died from brain injuries sustained in a fall.
This makes me sad. But so it goes.
Vonnegut was the author of many (if you want to know how many, read the obit) books, but my favorites were always Galapagos and Cat's Cradle. I tried reading Slaughterhouse Five, his most famous book, while I was high school. I couldn't get into it. I tried again in college and was puzzled, but it left me cold.
Then, this past summer, I had the opportunity to re-read it. I was supervising a graduate student's comprehensive exams, and she had put it on her reading list. I re-read the book before a meeting with her. Wow.
Some books have a built-in timer -- if you read them too soon, they're flat and tasteless. Too late and they're crusty and bitter. I read The Catcher in the Rye too late. I hated it, and I hated Holden Caufield for all the stupid things he did. It now seems that I had read Slaughterhouse Five too early.
Vonnegut gave a speech at the University of Texas when I was a student there, and I got to see him talk. It was a hoot. He was a hoot -- cranky, obnoxious, and very, very smart. (While in college, The Spouse got to see Leonard Nimoy speak. With all due respect to Mr. Nimoy (and he's due a lot), I still think I got the better deal.)
Vonnegut even ventured into Second Life. You can read about the set-up for the event here, or watch a video of an interview he gave in SL here.
"The time for the final sentence has come. [. . .]
If I were a younger man, I would write a history of human stupidity; and I would climb to the top of Mount McCabe and lie down on my back with my history for a pillow; and I would take from the ground some of the blue-white poison that makes statues of men; and I would make a statue of myself, lying on my back, grinning horribly, and thumbing my nose at You Know Who."
-- Cat's Cradle, 1963
Posted by reparent at April 12, 2007 7:25 PM