Kurt Vonnegut Remembered
Posted by chatfielda on April 13th, 2007
My posting has been sparce of late because of my schedule and my being out of town for long periods of time, but I felt I needed to take the time and the effort to stop off and partake of at least one note of appreciation for who I think is one of the truly great American voices of the 20th century and of literature in general. Kurt Vonnegut passed away last night at the age of 84.
As a young reader and prospective writer, I always felt a strong draw to works of fiction that didn’t constrain themselves to the norm, falling into the patterns of recycled fiction and panached landscape that so many “literary fiction” writers did and still do with their “Great American Novel”s. And while I have to admit that the only true reason I first read a Kurt Vonnegut book was the cool little pictures I saw in Breakfast of Champions, I never regretted nor stopped reading any of his books.
Lining each of my three separate bookshelves are his works, dog eared, high lighted, written in, and read thrice over with the loving attention of a youth just learning what the world has to offer. Slaughterhouse Five, whether it was the first time in high school or the fifth time in college, was a novel I’ll never forget, nor its effect on how I approached the art of reading and my own writing.
His pointed satirical voice, self referential genius, and ability to retread the same soil as so many great American novelists without the slightest hint of that thick, gooey sludge that catches so many young writers made him a gift to literature and to free thought.
As one of the most important writers in the canon of my own literary adventures, Kurt Vonnegut will be remembered warmly for as long as I can still take those pocket sized masterpieces down and read them.