I'm sure everyone has heard by now that the life of American novelist Kurt Vonnegut has been cut short:
His death was reported by Morgan Entrekin, a longtime family friend, who said Mr. Vonnegut suffered brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago.
He was an ornery man and an ornery writer; if the fall had not have happened, I wouldn't have been surprised to see Vonnegut live well beyond 90 years. In fact, after seeing him on the Daily Show some months ago, he seemed invincible.
I have always held Vonnegut in my elusive and incomplete top [insert number] favorite authors list. He is one of those rare writers that can write clearly and simply while maintaining a level of detail that draws you in to his stories. The content and tone of his stories always set up a convincing allegorical narrative, which allowed stodgy literature critics and scholars to take him more seriously than other "science fiction" writers like Le Guin, Asimov, Sturgeon, Bester or Bradbury (an unfortunate circumstance; much of their work deserves to be housed in the literature section of the bookstore).
For me, The Sirens of Titan will always be the book that defined Vonnegut's style. It was his second novel, and it was bitingly sarcastic yet beautifully written. Nothing happens in the book without purpose, but everything that happens, in the immediate sense, seems absolutely purposeless. The story pulls you from projected old men and dogs on Earth, to an Earth-aggro Martian training camp (which happens to be comprised of humans) to a far flung moon, aliens and the ultimate origins of the human race.
Vonnegut was often puzzled by the tendency of fiction writers to dismiss chemistry and physics. In 1965, he wrote the following in the NY Times:
The feeling persists that no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer and understand how a refrigerator works, just as no gentleman wears a brown suit in the city. Colleges may be to blame. English majors are encouraged, I know, to hate chemistry and physics, and to be proud because they are not dull and creepy and humorless and war-oriented like the engineers across the quad. And, because English majors can scarcely sign their own names at the end of a course of English instruction, many become serious critics.
If you've never read any Vonnegut, take that quote as illustrative of the man and his novels.
I think that the NY Times article does Vonnegut and his readers a disservice with statements like "[he] caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation" or
...it was his novels that became classics of the American counterculture, making him a literary idol, particularly to students in the 1960s and '70s. Dog-eared paperback copies of his books could be found in the back pockets of blue jeans and in dorm rooms on campuses throughout the United States.
Ask any college student into literature; Vonnegut still is a literary idol of the counterculture. His books still lie on the beds of dorm rooms and in the laps of library denizens.
Yes, his work, as all art, is indicative of the culture of the times, but his writing is and will remain relevant and instructive for subsequent generations, not just the one in which he was writing. Lessons should be learned from his style - clarity, cohesion, wit and storytelling. He never bashes you over the head with the "meaning" or "theme" of his books. You are invited in. His messages are subtle, cleverly sewn through a seemingly strange place filled with seemingly strange people.
Vonnegut shares the honor with Douglas Adams of having an asteroid named after him, number 25399 Vonnegut. It's appropriate for the man to be remembered on Earth and in space simultaneously.
All praise the life and times of Kilgore Trout.
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