We've lost another good one.
One of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., passed away tonight, from complications resulting from a fall a couple of weeks ago.
I'm trying very hard to greet this news with "So it goes." Maybe in a little while.
But as it is, I'm reminded of something he wrote in Timequake. "We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is." It sounds corny, but whenever I've picked up one of his books, be it Timequake, Welcome to the Monkey House, Mother Night or Slaughterhouse-Five, I've always found something there to help me through this thing. His voice was gentle and ridiculous, often surprised, always amazed. I always got the sense that he loved everybody, even the sons of bitches he hated. He seemed to me a kindred spirit.
And now he's gone. Hi ho.
So it goes.
Dammit.
Rob
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Dammit.
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2 comments:
I was just reminded on Mark Evanier's blog (newsfromme.com) that Vonnegut always attributed the quote I used to his son, Mark Vonnegut.
(And I should note that, despite how often I link to him here, it's purely a coincidence that Mark E. and I are using the same photo and quote to express our sadness at this man's passing. This was the one in a hundred times that I actually heard about someone's death before reading about it on Mark's blog, and I guess we have a similar sense the man and the occasion. That photo conveys exactly the sense of looking back kindly that I'd like to imagine Vonnegut is doing now, even though he'd laugh at the notion. I'd like to make him laugh.)
I fed him lunch once. Really. He was a guest at a catering I was working on, and was told by a line worker who had no idea who he was that he liked a salad I'd made.
That's my Kurt Vonnegut story.
The literary world has suffered a great loss.
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