(no subject)

[beachlass]

Kurt Vonnegut is dead. I started reading Vonnegut when I was in high school, many moons ago. I read and re-read Vonnegut until my early-20's... probably Bluebeard was the last book of his I read. Growing up in small town Ontario, Vonnegut was so removed and yet so very true, with his odd characters and even odder stories. I expect that Vonnegut shaped my taste in literature, sharpened my appreciation for highlighting the absurd, and then adding on seventeen more layers of craziness, all with a deft and defiant touch for language and a piercing insightfulness and compassion. Well done sir, thanks for the words.

Comments

[lepah.livejournal.com]

*WHAT?*

..THE F*&#?

well summarized, m'beloved lass, with whom i share a lifetime of literary influences...glad to hear it from you and not the daily news...but man oh man...

!FUCK!

yes yes yes. incisive, absurd, compelling, and so matter-of-fact, i couldn't tell if i by reading him, i was being subversive, sublime or just cocktail-party clever...and i was only 12! and that was just the beginning! and i loved him.

and god bless kurt for making me ask those questions throughout my formative years (and beyond) and being a rock i could cling to regardless of what fictional adventures i embarked upon...

seriously, tho, he's really dead?

and i hung onto "the eden express" for years, thru continents and contingencies...'cause i wanted to believe in someone's kids...or something...i read it for the first time in tijuana when i was 19, and it was levels of triptasticness then...

anyways so...feeling bereft...

thank you so much for everything you have given all the anonymous us...rip kurt vonnegut. i miss you already.

[beachlass.livejournal.com]

There's a beatiful sketch on his website of an open birdcage. I don't think I was as wedded to Vonnegut as some others - it was Timothy Findley that I read and reread until the books feel apart. I was standing in the bookstore on Saturday, holding a hardcover copy of The Telling of Lies, thinking I should buy this, my paperback has no cover, and is going to fall apart. But it just felt wrong - wasn't my copy of the book, so I left it on the shelf. (I did, however, put a copy of Alias Grace in D's easter basket).