Squeat Mungry Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 Rest in Peace Quote Link to post Share on other sites
omnivorette Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 If I knew how to do anything with graphics, I'd post a photo of the soles of two feet touching each other. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
mongo_jones Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 when i applied for my student visa at the american embassy in delhi in 1993, the interviewer asked me what i thought i would get my phd in. contemporary american literature, i said. which writers, he asked, and i named vonnegut among others. it may have been affectation but while stamping my forms he said, i have never understood the indian fascination with vonnegut. i don't know if it was an indian fascination, but he was an important part of my late teens and early twenties. i think "slaughterhouse five" was the first post-modern novel i read--i can't tell if its literary inventiveness or its moral vision had more of an effect on me. i read everything else by him that i could find for a while before losing track of him in the 90s. i probably don't estimate his work as highly now as i once did (though "slaughterhouse five" is an undeniable masterpiece) but the world is surely poorer without him. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Maison Rustique Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Squeat Mungry Posted April 12, 2007 Author Share Posted April 12, 2007 the world is surely poorer without him. So it goes. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
cristina Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 So it goes. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Orik Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 <begin tanabutler mode>He used to be somewhat of a regular at the coffee shop in Dag H. Plaza (which I think is now some sort of a milkshake place). One morning he asked a bashful young employee if she would go out with him. She giggled and blushed, then tried to vanish. Her co-worker snapped at her the moment he stepped out the door "do you have any idea who that was??? That's Kurt Vonnegut! I would pay to date him." And so, Kurt V. missed his chance of dating a 19 year old by mistaking blue contact lenses for intellect. </end tababutler mode> Quote Link to post Share on other sites
FaustianBargain Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 when i applied for my student visa at the american embassy in delhi in 1993, the interviewer asked me what i thought i would get my phd in. contemporary american literature, i said. which writers, he asked, and i named vonnegut among others. it may have been affectation but while stamping my forms he said, i have never understood the indian fascination with vonnegut. i don't know if it was an indian fascination, but he was an important part of my late teens and early twenties. i think "slaughterhouse five" was the first post-modern novel i read--i can't tell if its literary inventiveness or its moral vision had more of an effect on me. i read everything else by him that i could find for a while before losing track of him in the 90s. i probably don't estimate his work as highly now as i once did (though "slaughterhouse five" is an undeniable masterpiece) but the world is surely poorer without him. i couldnt agree more with you. vonnegut and his books babysat me through most of my youth. i cannot quite express in words how sad and empty i am feeling right now. eta but while stamping my forms he said, i have never understood the indian fascination with vonnegut. that's because indians are obsessed with the idea of fatalism. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
monkeymay Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 ...but he was an important part of my late teens and early twenties. i think "slaughterhouse five" was the first post-modern novel i read--i can't tell if its literary inventiveness or its moral vision had more of an effect on me. i read everything else by him that i could find for a while before losing track of him in the 90s. i probably don't estimate his work as highly now as i once did (though "slaughterhouse five" is an undeniable masterpiece) but the world is surely poorer without him. My sentiments exactly, I read Slaughterhouse when I was 15 and thought it was so important... This is a sad day indeed. RIP Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Miguel Gierbolini Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 One of the few authors to this day whose oeuvre I have read almost in its entirety. I thought at the time, earlier in my life, that he was quite funny. I don't recall if I understood any of his deeper philosophical thoughts about the meaning of life. Maybe a little but I have my doubts. He used to appear in the Imus show. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Heather Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt." I had the pleasure of hearing him speak about twenty years ago. His sense of humor was the thing I most remember about the lecture. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ngatti Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 A sad day. I read Cat's Cradle at 13 by mistake as he was pigeonholed as a SF writer. The deeper meanings were lost on me, but there was something that was awakened. Slauterhouse was required hipster/ cool reading for my generation, but it was Mother Night that spoke most deeply to me. Life's perversions and twists vis a vis Howard W. Campbell still resonate. I read everything up until Slapstick and then found that for some reason he stopped speaking to me, but I have always held a tender spot for his influence on my adolescence and young adulthood. R.I.P. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ghostrider Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 I can only echo. Seems that he got to a lot of folks in their adolescence, including me. Heard that he'd been "ill" for several weeks after hitting his head in a fall. Does anyone know if that wretched ice storm was responsible? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Cathy Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 And Player Piano, Sirens of Titan, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater...Vonnegut was such an important voice to me when I was a kid. He was the victim of a series of accidents, as are we all. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
lovelynugget Posted April 12, 2007 Share Posted April 12, 2007 Worth watching is this recent appearance on the Daily Show. He was promoting his latest book A Man Without a Country. He is a bit frail, you can hear it in his voice, but he is as funny and feisty and cutting to those in power and charming and clever as ever. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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