Kurt Vonnegut Dead

musicismylife78
musicismylife78 Posts: 6,116
edited April 2007 in A Moving Train
Kurt Vonnegut died today.

Probably what he wanted, I remember reading an interview with him in Rolling Stone this past summer, and he was saying that he felt humans were useless and that we had screwed up the world and that we had wasted this precious thing called life. It was stunning to read that, as during the summer you had Tool, and Pearl Jam, basically saying the same things. Kurt said he was ashamed for us all.

RIP KURT VONNEGUT!
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Comments

  • PearlsGirl
    PearlsGirl Posts: 257
    The man was a fucking genius. Slaughterhouse 5 is one of my favorite books. RIP Kurt.
    Don't let the world bring you down, not everyone here is that fucked up and cold. Remember why you came and while you're alive, experience the warmth before you grow old.

    Best two days of my life: Oasis at MSG and Pearl Jam at the Gorge.
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    he was a true original... and he will be missed. so prolific.
  • kenny olav
    kenny olav Posts: 3,319
    I've been meaning to read Slaughterhouse 5 for awhile. All I've read of Kurt Vonnegut is a few articles... very long and very good articles, and one was written not too long ago. 84 is a old age to check out at, and hopefully he's at peace now, but I'd say it's a loss for us remaining humans.
  • Abuskedti
    Abuskedti Posts: 1,917
    Kurt's were the first books I read. I am a huge fan. Your light made us stars

    "We could have saved the Earth but we were too damned cheap. "

    "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. "

    "The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest."

    "I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different. "

    "Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say? "
  • Collin
    Collin Posts: 4,931
    RIP. A great writer.
    THANK YOU, LOSTDAWG!


    naděje umírá poslední
  • Jeremy1012
    Jeremy1012 Posts: 7,170
    R.I.P Kurt

    Slaughterhouse 5 was the first novel that really made me think about how we perceive our presence here.
    "I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead, I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land — every colour, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike — all snored in the same language"
  • farfromglorified
    farfromglorified Posts: 5,700
    Rest in peace, Mr. Vonnegut. You were and are a true American original, a champion of the individual, and a haphazard genius.

    +
    +

    “One time,” said Castle, “when I as about fifteen, there was a mutiny near here on a Greek ship bound from Hong Kong to Havana with a load of wicker furniture. The mutineers got control of the ship, didn’t know how to run her, and smashed her up on the rocks near ‘Papa’ Monzano’s castle. Everybody drowned but the rats. The rats and the wicker furniture came ashore.”
    That seemed to be the end of the story, but I couldn’t be sure. “So?”
    “So some people got free furniture, and some people got bubonic plague. At Father’s hospital, we had fourteen hundred deaths inside of ten days. Have you ever seen anyone die of bubonic plague?”
    “That unhappiness has not been mine.”
    “The lymph glands in the groin and the armpits swell to the size of grapefruit.”
    “I can well believe it.”
    “After death, the body turns black—coals to Newcastle in the case of San Lorenzo. When the plague was having every thing its own way, the House of Hope and Mercy in the Jungle looked like Auschwitz or Buchenwald. We had stacks of dead so deep and wide that a bulldozer actually stalled trying to shove them toward a common grave. Father worked without sleep for days, worked not only without sleep but without saving many lives, either... One sleepless night I stayed up with Father while he worked. It was all we could do to find a live patient to treat. In bed after bed after bed we found dead people.
    “And Father started giggling,” Castle continued.
    “He couldn’t stop. He walked out into the night with his flashlight. He was still giggling. He was making the flashlight beam dance over all the dead people stacked outside. He put his hand on my head, and do you know what that marvelous man said to me?” asked Castle.
    “Nope.”
    “Son,’ my father said to me, ‘someday this will all be yours.’”

    - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

    +
    +

    You will be missed.
  • OutOfBreath
    OutOfBreath Posts: 1,804
    *takes off hat and bows head*
    RIP, Kurt. Brilliant man.

    And Kenny, do read Slaughterhouse 5. His very best in my opinion.

    Peace
    Dan
    "YOU [humans] NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN'T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?" - Death

    "Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
  • mammasan
    mammasan Posts: 5,656
    Sad to hear about this this morning. We have lost a literary giant.
    "When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads." - Ron Paul
  • baraka
    baraka Posts: 1,268
    I was so sad to read about Kurt's passing. He was my FAVORITE writers as a kid (I discovered Slaughterhouse 5 in 8th grade). I had the pleasure of watching an interview with him on PBS about a year and a half ago. He was sharp as a tack until the end.

    "Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward."

    ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
    The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance,
    but the illusion of knowledge.
    ~Daniel Boorstin

    Only a life lived for others is worth living.
    ~Albert Einstein
  • blackredyellow
    blackredyellow Posts: 5,889
    RIP Kurt

    The only Vonnegut book that I've read was Breakfast of Champions.... After reading that I have been wanting to read more, and Slaughterhouse and Cat's Cradle have been on my Amazon wishlist for a couple of years. I really do have to read those.

    While it's a sad day for his friends and family, his words and thoughts will live on for generations in his books.
    My whole life
    was like a picture
    of a sunny day
    “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
    ― Abraham Lincoln
  • Flagg
    Flagg Posts: 5,856
    Very sad. The world has lost one of its greates literary minds.

    RIP Kurt.
    DAL-7/5/98,10/17/00,6/9/03,11/15/13
    BOS-9/28/04,9/29/04,6/28/08,6/30/08, 9/5/16, 9/7/16, 9/2/18
    MTL-9/15/05, OTT-9/16/05
    PHL-5/27/06,5/28/06,10/30/09,10/31/09
    CHI-8/2/07,8/5/07,8/23/09,8/24/09
    HTFD-6/27/08
    ATX-10/4/09, 10/12/14
    KC-5/3/2010,STL-5/4/2010
    Bridge School-10/23/2010,10/24/2010
    PJ20-9/3/2011,9/4/2011
    OKC-11/16/13
    SEA-12/6/13
    TUL-10/8/14
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    No question, a very fine writer. May he rest in peace.
  • farfromglorified
    farfromglorified Posts: 5,700
    Vonnegut once detailed a number of rules for writing short fiction. As a wannabe author, I've always held one of these near and dear to me:

    "Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of." - Vonnegut
  • baraka
    baraka Posts: 1,268
    farfromglorified wrote:
    Vonnegut once detailed a number of rules for writing short fiction. As a wannabe author, I've always held one of these near and dear to me:

    "Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of." - Vonnegut

    "Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."

    ~Kurt Vonnegut, A Man without a Country
    The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance,
    but the illusion of knowledge.
    ~Daniel Boorstin

    Only a life lived for others is worth living.
    ~Albert Einstein
  • farfromglorified
    farfromglorified Posts: 5,700
    baraka wrote:
    "Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college."

    ~Kurt Vonnegut, A Man without a Country

    :)
  • Abuskedti
    Abuskedti Posts: 1,917
    blackredyellow wrote:
    RIP Kurt

    The only Vonnegut book that I've read was Breakfast of Champions.... After reading that I have been wanting to read more, and Slaughterhouse and Cat's Cradle have been on my Amazon wishlist for a couple of years. I really do have to read those.

    While it's a sad day for his friends and family, his words and thoughts will live on for generations in his books.

    Is that the one where the charactors met their creater at the bar?

    I wonder if Kurt is sitting at a bar somewhere talking to the author of his book.
  • boxwine_in_hell
    boxwine_in_hell Posts: 1,263
    What a great man and what a great writer. There are some lines in "Breakfast of Champions" that just about make me pee my pants with laughter. Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat's Cradle are so poignant. This truly bums me out, one of the last true human beings.
    one foot in the door
    the other foot in the gutter
    sweet smell that they adore
    I think I'd rather smother
    -The Replacements-
  • sweet adeline
    sweet adeline Posts: 2,191
    Abuskedti wrote:
    Is that the one where the charactors met their creater at the bar?

    I wonder if Kurt is sitting at a bar somewhere talking to the author of his book.

    yes. kilgore trout, meets his maker.
  • vonnegutnaked2
    vonnegutnaked2 Posts: 43
    Kurt was an inspiration...to me, and my screen name.

    "A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved"
    KV

    and, as always,

    So it goes

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