Thursday, April 12, 2007

So It Goes


Vonnegut is dead. When I was in school I studied Breakfast of Champions and was simultaneously excited and appalled. This man's satire would have given Jonathan Swift a goosing, for he went well beyond modest proposals. After graduation I went on to Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five. In a long list of authors who have changed my life Vonnegut, in truth, isn't that high, but there can be no doubt that he has been a big influence in our time. He was a POW during the firebombings of Dresden, and wrote about it like nobody else has done or ever will.

Farewell Mr. Vonnegut. If only we could say, "everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."

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