And So It Goes
Kurt Vonnegut died this week, and even though he's not done much in recent years other than to remind us to wear sunscreen (excellent advice, btw), the cacophony that is the post modernist voice sounds a little quieter now.
I haven't read anything by Kurt Vonnegut in years, but like most of my peer group, I went through that phase in my late teens. That moment where you are just starting to read good books on your own, and to know that they might be good, although you aren't certain why. That moment where you are feeling all edgy and antiestablishment and inspired by Kerouac and the like, and you are filled with a passion for the avant garde and the left of centre. The Vonnegut moment, if you will.
I mostly remember Vonnegut because my senior English essay was on Slaughterhouse Five. I remember struggling to wring meaning from the book, to follow his style and to understand a narrative so radically different from the staid, linear works I was used to. I remember handing in the essay, not sure I'd really gotten the book, but confident that I'd managed at least a basic understanding of it. And I remember reading my teacher's comments on that essay and realizing that he didn't get it either. I think Vonnegut would have been pleased by the irony there.
I've decided not to believe that he's really dead. I've decided to believe that he's simply unstuck in time, whiling away his time in a Tralfamadorian zoo and advising them on the benefits of sunscreen.
Comments
I was never a huge fan-but I always recognized his talent and his meaning to the broader world of literature.
Sad though. Although it's amusing he didn't die of smoking...
It's so sad. I saw him speak when I was in high school, and he was totally amazing.
Wow. That must have been amazing for you, given what respect you had for his writing.
I saw Timothy Findley and Robertson Davies speak just before their death, and then I stopped going to author readings just in case *I* was the common factor.
It's always sad to lose a major literary voice, even if you aren't a huge fan, and even if they haven't written anything lately. The world just seems silent for a few minutes. Then another voice comes along, and so it goes.
