Author Topic: Kurt Vonnegut Dead at 84  (Read 5489 times)

Michael

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on: April 12, 2007, 09:46:23 AM


"Mr. Vonnegut suffered brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago."

Quote
His novels — 14 in all — were alternate universes, filled with topsy-turvy images and populated by races of his own creation, like the Tralfamadorians and the Mercurian Harmoniums. He invented phenomena like chrono-synclastic infundibula (places in the universe where all truths fit neatly together) as well as religions, like the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent and Bokononism (based on the books of a black British Episcopalian from Tobago “filled with bittersweet lies,” a narrator says).

The defining moment of Mr. Vonnegut’s life was the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, by Allied forces in 1945, an event he witnessed firsthand as a young prisoner of war. Thousands of civilians were killed in the raids, many of them burned to death or asphyxiated. “The firebombing of Dresden,” Mr. Vonnegut wrote, “was a work of art.” It was, he added, “a tower of smoke and flame to commemorate the rage and heartbreak of so many who had had their lives warped or ruined by the indescribable greed and vanity and cruelty of Germany.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/books/11cnd-vonnegut.html?_r=3&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin


Heradel

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Reply #1 on: April 12, 2007, 11:04:31 AM
And all less than 24 hours and within 6 miles from my borrowing Cat's Cradle from the NYPL.

A little freaky.

Sad to see him go. It seems like the old guard is getting smaller and smaller as the months go on.

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jrderego

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Reply #2 on: April 12, 2007, 12:34:16 PM
Goodbye Mr. Vonnegut. I'll re-read God Bless You Mr. Rosewater in memoriam.

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sayeth

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Reply #3 on: April 12, 2007, 02:40:27 PM
So it goes

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Thaurismunths

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Reply #4 on: April 12, 2007, 03:12:03 PM
He's missed a lot right now, but he's just fine in plenty of other moments.

How do you fight a bully that can un-make history?


DKT

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Reply #5 on: April 12, 2007, 03:51:48 PM
 :(

He lived a long life and he wrote a hell of a lot of books.  But it's still sad.


Startrekwiki

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Reply #6 on: April 12, 2007, 06:23:43 PM
I agree. It's really sad, to see an era's great die. From brain trauma! I can only imagine the pain he must have been in. Good writer, though.



Anarkey

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Reply #7 on: April 12, 2007, 06:50:51 PM
Goodbye. 

Your books are among those that changed the way I look at the world.

One day, I hope to write books that change the way someone looks at the world.

We all die, but I wish you hadn't yet.  The group of living authors who changed me grows ever smaller, and I fear I am not so malleable as I once was, and the new guys have no chance.

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