Goodbye Kurt Vonnegut, You Were a Seriously Cool Dude

[mousepod]

Sad to report that Kurt Vonnegut has died. I've been a fan since fifth grade, when I learned of the "chrono-synclastic infundibulum".

[€uroMeinke]

Here's to Tralfamadore and Wide Open Beavers

[Cadaverous Pallor]

No! :(

GD is going to be extra bummed about this one too. We were both fans.

Sometimes I'm reminded that all my favorite elders will pass before my eyes. Sigh.

[scaeagles]

Sometimes I'm reminded that all my favorite elders will pass before my eyes. Sigh.

Better than the alternative, eh?

[Not Afraid]

OOOH! Very sad news!

[Alex]

I've read everything and it was a mixed bag but that which was good was great.

I didn't know he was still alive, though.

[innerSpaceman]

Yeah, I thought he was dead already, too. Eh, we all die. Better to have been a brilliant author than most dead people achieved.

[flippyshark]

Sad news, but this is sure to spark a few re-reads for me.

[wendybeth]

I loved Kurt Vonnegut when I was younger- I have all his books up to 'Galapogos', then I just sort of drifted away from his writing. Brilliant guy, great to see in person and funny as hell. Didn't he have to suffer through having Geraldo Rivera as a son-in-law for a time? I always saw that as the sort of cruel cosmic joke that might show up in his writings.

[MouseWife]

I saw him on a talk show, I can't remember which, not too long ago.

I was impressed by his sharpness, at his age. {I think it was to promote his last book}.

I can not say I've read his works but I know of his work and my daughter, when I told her, was taken aback and definitely bummed.

Yes, CP, it is sad to think that so many people {actually anyone we love or admire} will leave this life before we do and we will miss having them.

[Strangler Lewis]

Apart from his writing, he was really good in Back to School. He looked about 84 then back in '84. Now he and Rodney are both gone. As are so many others.

[thecorndogwalker]

One of my favorite lines from a movie was from the 80's teen flick called "Just one of the boys" where a girl dons boy drag to and goes to another high school. Her teenage brother is this little horndog and he is talking about a playboy centerfold he is drooling about and says.
"She despises Toxic waste and reads Vonnegut in the bathtub!"

Hey it got me into Vonnegut...

Loved Breakfast of Champions... Loved his concepts of the "LEAKS"

[Ghoulish Delight]

Poo-tee-tweet.

Mixed bag indeed on his work as a whole, and I very much disagreed with some of his strong views.

That said, he was a genius and much of his work entertains me quite a bit. Writers like him are few and far between, I always found it odd that he was a contemporary and I find it equally odd that he's gone.

[Moonliner]

Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle," died Wednesday. He was 84.

In college my roomate had to write a critique of a "Breakfast of Champions". The teacher did not like his take on the book, gave him a bad grade and said his views were just wrong. So my roomie sent his paper along with the teachers comments to Kurt. About a month later he received back a message:

Dear John:

Your teacher is an asshole.

Sincerely
Kurt Vonnegut


(oops, I just noticed the other thread on this. Would someone merge this with that?)

[Sub la Goon]

I still consider Mother Night to be one of my favorite books.

I will miss his skewed point of view.

[3894]

Dear World,

Kurt Vonnegut had serious writing chops. Thank God he let us read his stuff.

Sincerely,
Helen

[Snowflake]

In college my roomate had to write a critique of a "Breakfast of Champions". The teacher did not like his take on the book, gave him a bad grade and said his views were just wrong. So my roomie sent his paper along with the teachers comments to Kurt. About a month later he received back a message:

Dear John:

Your teacher is an asshole.

Sincerely
Kurt Vonnegut


(oops, I just noticed the other thread on this. Would someone merge this with that?)


What a great story. Farewell Kurt (in truth, I thought you'd gone already :blush: )

[SacTown Chronic]

It's such a great story, I still remember the first time I heard it.


So either Vonnegut has called many a professor an "asshole" or Moonie's roommate is THE guy in the story I heard (read).

[Moonliner]

It's such a great story, I still remember the first time I heard it.


So either Vonnegut has called many a professor an "asshole" or Moonie's roommate is THE guy in the story I heard (read).

I would not be suprised if Kurt recived and responded in kind to many such letters. However in this case I did see the actual letter from Kurt. (Circa 1981 or so...). If you can find the refrence you saw please post it. I'd be interested to see if there is a connection.

[Strangler Lewis]

In college my roomate had to write a critique of a "Breakfast of Champions". The teacher did not like his take on the book, gave him a bad grade and said his views were just wrong. So my roomie sent his paper along with the teachers comments to Kurt. About a month later he received back a message:

Dear John:

Your teacher is an asshole.

Sincerely
Kurt Vonnegut


(oops, I just noticed the other thread on this. Would someone merge this with that?)

Nice story. Interestingly, that was basically the bit in Back to School. Rodney hired Kurt Vonnegut to write his English paper on a Vonnegut novel. The snooty professor recognized that Rodney could not have written the essay and added that whoever did knows nothing about Vonnegut.

Professors being professors, you'd probably get the same result with whatever author you plugged in.

[katiesue]

He was one of my Dad's favorite's. If there is an afterlife perhaps they're hanging out?

[Alex]

If there is an afterlife, he's probably mildly pissed off.

[Alex]

Poking around to confirm my recollection that Vonnegut was an atheist (and thus my previous post) and I stumbled upon Conservapedia (http://www.conservapedia.com/Kurt_Vonnegut). I wondered what they had to say and it is just bizarre.

Vonnegut has described himself as an atheist (http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheist),[1] (http://www.conservapedia.com/Kurt_Vonnegut#_note-0)
And then the footnote says "Some question whether Kurt Vonnegut was an atheist..." because surely Vonnegut wouldn't know.

And I liked this:

He attributed his atheism to having studied anthropology, yet he has been often respectful of those with faith, such as observing that "there were no Atheists in foxholes."
That footnote for that last part links to a quote from Hocus Pocus that reads, in full:

The sermon was based on what he claimed was a well-known fact, that there were no Atheists in foxholes. I asked Jack what he thought of the sermon afterwards, and he said, "There's a Chaplain who never visited the front."

I'm sure that Vonnegut was generally polite in the face of other's faith, but that quote doesn't say what the writer apparently thinks it says.

[Tref]

I found some interesting Vonnegut quotes on everything from C Students from Yale to the healing power The Beatles ... I believe this was taken from the Daily Show, though I can not be sure.


"Our leaders are sick of all the solid information
that has been dumped on humanity by research and
scholarship and investigative reporting ... They want
to put us back on the snake-oil standard ... What good
is an education? The boisterous guessers are still in
charge - the haters of information ... In case you
haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all
over the world as the Nazis once were."

I have one reality show that would make your hair
stand on end: 'C Students from Yale.' George W. Bush
has gathered around him upper-crust C students who
know no history or geography ... plus, most
frighteningly, psychopathic personalities ... smart,
personable people who have no consciences ... and
suddenly they are taking charge of everything ... They
might have felt that taking our country into an
endless war was simply something decisive to do ...
Unlike normal people, they are never filled with
doubts, for the simple reason that they don't (care)
what happens next."

"We are about to be attacked by Al Qaeda. Wave flags
if you have them. That always seems to scare them
away. I'm kidding. If you want to really hurt your
parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the
least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding.
The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a
very human way of making life more bearable."

"Music makes practically everybody fonder of life than
he or she would be without it. The function of the
artist is to make people like life better than they
have before. When I've been asked if I've ever seen
that done, I say, 'Yes, the Beatles did it.' "