Kurt Vonnegut Dies
April 12th, 2007
I was saddened to learn today that Kurt Vonnegut has died.
He has been one of my favorite writers since I was old enough to have a favorite writer. Very rightly, Indianapolis had declared 2007 as the Year of Vonnegut, and I consider myself lucky to have lived in his time.
One of my favorite quotes is something I read in one of his books, but is not something he wrote. In the preface to one of his novels, he told of a letter he received from a young boy. The boy talked about how he noticed that all of Vonnegut's stories seemed to distill down to a single six-word theme: "love may fail, but courtesy prevails." If I live my life by any motto, that comes close, and Vonnegut played a large part in shaping it.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
You know, I was writing you about this very thing and thought to check your blog. The NY Times wrote a nice article about his life and included the graduation address he gave at Syracuse, which I had never seen before. You may want to check it out.
Thanks for introducing me to his work. We are, indeed, lucky to have lived in his time.
April 14th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Here’s a link to the NY Times article Liz mentioned (thanks Liz).
Also, if you’re interested, Vonnegut was semi-involved with a newsletter entitled In These Times. It contains “reporting about corporate malfeasance and government wrongdoing, insightful analysis of national and international affairs, and sharp cultural criticism about events and ideas that matter.”