Go Back   Gossip Rocks Forum > Entertainment > Books and Literature


Login to remove all ads!
Old April 12th, 2007, 08:06 AM   #1 (permalink)
buttmunch
Friend of Gossip Rocks!
 
buttmunch's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Uranus
Posts: 18,229
Default Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84

Quote:
NEW YORK (AP) - 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.
Vonnegut, who often marveled that he had lived so long despite his lifelong smoking habit, had suffered brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.

The author of at least 19 novels, many of them best-sellers, as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays, Vonnegut relished the role of a social critic. Indianapolis, his hometown, declared 2007 as "The Year of Vonnegut"—an announcement he said left him "thunderstruck."

He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.

"I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations," Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.

A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view. He also filled his novels with satirical commentary and even drawings that were only loosely connected to the plot. In "Slaughterhouse-Five," he drew a headstone with the epitaph: "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt."

But much in his life was traumatic, and left him in pain.

Despite his commercial success, Vonnegut battled depression throughout his life, and in 1984, he attempted suicide with pills and alcohol, joking later about how he botched the job.

"I think he was a man who combined a wicked sense of humor and sort of steady moral compass, who was always sort of looking at the big picture of the things that were most important," said Joel Bleifuss, editor of In These Times, a liberal magazine based in Chicago that featured Vonnegut articles.

His mother killed herself just before he left for Germany during World War II, where he was quickly taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. He was being held in Dresden when Allied bombs created a firestorm that killed an estimated tens of thousands of people.

"The firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am what I am," Vonnegut wrote in "Fates Worse Than Death," his 1991 autobiography of sorts.

But he spent 23 years struggling to write about the ordeal, which he survived by huddling with other POW's inside an underground meat locker labeled slaughterhouse-five.

The novel, in which Pvt. Pilgrim is transported from Dresden by time- traveling aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, was published at the height of the Vietnam War, and solidified his reputation as an iconoclast.

"He was sort of like nobody else," said Gore Vidal, who noted that he, Vonnegut and Norman Mailer were among the last writers around who served in World War II.

"He was imaginative; our generation of writers didn't go in for imagination very much. Literary realism was the general style. Those of us who came out of the war in the 1940s made it sort of the official American prose, and it was often a bit on the dull side. Kurt was never dull."

Vonnegut was born on Nov. 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, a "fourth- generation German-American religious skeptic Freethinker," and studied chemistry at Cornell University before joining the Army.

When he returned, he reported for Chicago's City News Bureau, then did public relations for General Electric, a job he loathed. He wrote his first novel, "Player Piano," in 1951, followed by "The Sirens of Titan," "Canary in a Cat House" and "Mother Night," making ends meet by selling Saabs on Cape Cod.

Critics ignored him at first, then denigrated his deliberately bizarre stories and disjointed plots as haphazardly written science fiction. But his novels became cult classics, especially "Cat's Cradle" in in which scientists create "ice-nine," a crystal that turns water solid and destroys the earth.

Many of his novels were best-sellers. Some also were banned and burned for suspected obscenity. Vonnegut took on censorship as an active member of the PEN writers' aid group and the American Civil Liberties Union. The American Humanist Association, which promotes individual freedom, rational thought and scientific skepticism, made him its honorary president.

His characters tended to be miserable anti-heros with little control over their fate. Vonnegut said the villains in his books were never individuals, but culture, society and history, which he said were making a mess of the planet.

"We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard... and too damn cheap," he once suggested carving into a wall on the Grand Canyon, as a message for flying-saucer creatures.

He retired from novel writing in his later years, but continued to publish short articles. He had a best-seller in 2005 with "A Man Without a Country," a collection of his nonfiction work, including jabs at the Bush administration ("upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography") and the uncertain future of the planet.

He called the book's success "a nice glass of champagne at the end of a life."

In recent years, Vonnegut worked as a senior editor and columnist at In These Times. Bleifuss said he had been trying to get Vonnegut to write something more for the magazine, but was unsuccessful.

"He would just say he's too old and that he had nothing more to say. He realized, I think, he was at the end of his life," Bleifuss said.

Vonnegut, who had homes in Manhattan and the Hamptons in New York, adopted his sister's three young children after she died. He also had three children of his own with his first wife, Ann Cox, and later adopted a daughter, Lily, with his second wife, the noted photographer Jill Krementz.

Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he'd prefer to go out in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He often joked about the difficulties of old age.

"When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon," Vonnegut told The Associated Press in 2005.

"My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I'll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children."
Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Dies at Age 84

A sad day...I'm off to re-read Welcome to the Monkey House.
__________________
"You must never underestimate the power of the eyebrow. "-Jack Black
buttmunch is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 08:42 AM   #2 (permalink)
twitchy
Elite Member
 
twitchy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Dancing on your grave!!!!
Posts: 9,147
Default

I love Vonnegut's writing and his outspokenness. This is a sad day.
__________________

"The howling backwoods that is IMDB is where film criticism goes to die (and then have its corpse gang-raped, called a racist, and accused of supporting Al-Qaeda)" ----Sean O'Neal, The Onion AV Club
twitchy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 09:50 AM   #3 (permalink)
greysfang
Elite Member
 
greysfang's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Burning Down Your Windmill
Posts: 8,538
Default

I loved Vonnegut, the Sirens of Titan is one of my all time favorite books. He had a great, long and productive life, but he will be sorely missed.
__________________

That's not a fucking ticket, it's a sitcom. The Maverick and the MILF. - Bill Maher
greysfang is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 10:36 AM   #4 (permalink)
buttmunch
Friend of Gossip Rocks!
 
buttmunch's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Uranus
Posts: 18,229
Default

IF you haven't read the short story 'Welcome to the Monkey House', do so. I just re-read it and still love it to bits. It's my favorite piece of writing from him and that's saying something, considering his towering talents.
__________________
"You must never underestimate the power of the eyebrow. "-Jack Black
buttmunch is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 03:44 PM   #5 (permalink)
pacific breeze
Hit By Ban Bus!
 
pacific breeze's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: in the wild blue yonder
Posts: 15,540
Default

Another great one down for the count. Can't think of anyone with his talent and willingness to stand up for what he believes, even if it costs him lots of almighty dollars.
pacific breeze is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 03:47 PM   #6 (permalink)
twitchy
Elite Member
 
twitchy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Dancing on your grave!!!!
Posts: 9,147
Default

All the greats are gone


PLAYBOY: So, who are the new Kurt Vonneguts or Joe Hellers?
HELLER: Oh, I don't think there has been anybody after us.
VONNEGUT: Well, we haven't seen Schwarzkopf's memoirs yet. Laughs
HELLER: You've got the name wrong. Scheisskopf.

http://www.vonnegutweb.com/vonnegutia/interviews/int_heller.html
__________________

"The howling backwoods that is IMDB is where film criticism goes to die (and then have its corpse gang-raped, called a racist, and accused of supporting Al-Qaeda)" ----Sean O'Neal, The Onion AV Club
twitchy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 03:48 PM   #7 (permalink)
pacific breeze
Hit By Ban Bus!
 
pacific breeze's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: in the wild blue yonder
Posts: 15,540
Default

^^Hilarious, but true. I remember reading Vonnegut's books for the first time and how excited I was. I haven't felt that way about an author for a long, long time.
pacific breeze is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 03:53 PM   #8 (permalink)
greysfang
Elite Member
 
greysfang's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Burning Down Your Windmill
Posts: 8,538
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by buttmunch View Post
IF you haven't read the short story 'Welcome to the Monkey House', do so. I just re-read it and still love it to bits. It's my favorite piece of writing from him and that's saying something, considering his towering talents.
Oh yes, excellent story. But Sirens of Titan was the first I read and will always be my favorite. I remember I was 14 or so and was amazed that such sedition could come in book form (yes, i was a very sheltered midwest child).
__________________

That's not a fucking ticket, it's a sitcom. The Maverick and the MILF. - Bill Maher
greysfang is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 03:55 PM   #9 (permalink)
twitchy
Elite Member
 
twitchy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Dancing on your grave!!!!
Posts: 9,147
Default

Husband-to-be and I had a long distance romance and sent books and music as care packages. When he sent me Deadeye Dick, I knew I had a keeper.
__________________

"The howling backwoods that is IMDB is where film criticism goes to die (and then have its corpse gang-raped, called a racist, and accused of supporting Al-Qaeda)" ----Sean O'Neal, The Onion AV Club
twitchy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 04:42 PM   #10 (permalink)
buttmunch
Friend of Gossip Rocks!
 
buttmunch's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Uranus
Posts: 18,229
Default

^^And you did! What a great guy!

Quote:
All the greats are gone
No way are all the greats gone....they just haven't yet been discovered. I figure that, given the times we live in, all sorts of great artistic sensibilities are out there...we just have to be on the look-out and not quite so cynical and bitter. I think we're in for a great artistic time...it's the only reaction to distressing times.
__________________
"You must never underestimate the power of the eyebrow. "-Jack Black
buttmunch is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 04:50 PM   #11 (permalink)
ediebrooks
Hit By Ban Bus!
 
ediebrooks's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: In another dimension, untouched by time
Posts: 6,835
Default

I really liked him. I haven't read his books in a long time, but as I recall there was an undercurrent of sadness beneath the humor.
ediebrooks is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 05:04 PM   #12 (permalink)
buttmunch
Friend of Gossip Rocks!
 
buttmunch's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Uranus
Posts: 18,229
Default

Time to dust off those old volumes and re-discover the joys of Mr. Kurt. He is...I guess was...fabulous. I hope I live my life with as much verve as he did...
__________________
"You must never underestimate the power of the eyebrow. "-Jack Black
buttmunch is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 09:00 PM   #13 (permalink)
memebot
Silver Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Where the Wild Things Are
Posts: 636
Default

So it goes, Mr. Vonnegut. So it goes.
memebot is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 09:06 PM   #14 (permalink)
moomies
Elite Member
 
moomies's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: pretending to be a lurker but I'm not quiet enough
Posts: 15,542
Send a message via ICQ to moomies Send a message via AIM to moomies Send a message via Skype™ to moomies
Default

A Great and very inspiring writer.

Just a little trivia: He had a MA in anthropology
__________________

If you think it's crazy, you ain't seen a thing. Just wait until we're goin down in flames.
moomies is offline   Reply With Quote
Old April 12th, 2007, 10:49 PM   #15 (permalink)
Lani
Elite Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Queensland, Australia
Posts: 1,849
Send a message via AIM to Lani
Default

what a sad sad day. I was just recently introduced to his work and read a good handfull of his books in a month.
__________________
"Don't think that sticking your boobs out and trying to look fuckable will help. Remember your in a rock and roll band. It's not "Fuck Me", It's "Fuck You!"
Chrissie Hynde

Lani is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply



Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Kurt Cobain talking about bandmates and Courtney AliceInWonderland Music and Music Videos 3 August 1st, 2006 07:27 AM
Kurt Cobain to narrate his own documentary muchlove Gossip Archive 8 December 10th, 2005 09:10 PM
Vonnegut to make cover of Rolling Stone buttmunch Books and Literature 7 October 11th, 2005 06:55 AM


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 08:00 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.8
Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Content Relevant URLs by vBSEO 3.0.0 RC8
Design by JP33