Kurt Vonnegut, RIP

[breambob]

Off topic, but his works have been discussed and admired by many of us here over the years. So long to one of my favorite authors. You gave me many hours of pleasant reading and a unique perspective on life in this crazy old world.
TY, KV...

[festivalgirl]

His last book, in 2005, was a collection of biographical essays, “A Man Without a Country.” It, too, was a best seller.

In concludes with a poem written by Mr. Vonnegut called “Requiem,” which has these closing lines:

When the last living thing

has died on account of us,

how poetical it would be

if Earth could say,

in a voice floating up

perhaps

from the floor

of the Grand Canyon,

“It is done.”

People did not like it here.

His books were a staple in our house my whole life. My parents encouraged us to read whatever they read - Vonnegut was a family favorite. One of his final appearances was on the Jon Stewart Show with a brilliant rant against our government. I'm sure Charlie Rose will have a wonderful tribute to him.

What a sad day :(

[ohio]

oh my. RIP, Kurt. And thanks.

[steffie]

Big teardrops. He was a favorite of mine. :(

[saturn]

"I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center."

Kurt Vonnegut

RIP

[Rossvegas]

Damn! He was definitely one of my favourite authors...

When I was much younger, I really wasn't that much into books...but Kurt Vonnegut changed all that. The first book of his that I ever read was "Breakfast of Champions", and I loved it.

Although I read that book a few times, I actually didn't read Breakfast all the way through the first two times...for some reason I bailed out on the book with a couple of chapters to go. (Reading 90% of a book seemed to be a bad habit of mine back in those days!) I just thought it was a cute, whimsical book with lots of hilarious drawings, but when I finally DID read the book all the way through...Wow. I've been a big fan ever since.

RIP Kurt. You definitely were one of a kind...

[PaulC]

good man,.. BIG voice,... huge loss....

RIP.................

[Festering]

The Vonnegut family has been a fixture here on Cape Cod for many years and his early books have lots of fun in-jokes for Cape Codders -- like the name of a fictitious law firm which locals knew was actually the name of a trash hauling company.

End of a literary era.

-dan

[festfreak]

So it goes...

[festivalgirl]

So it goes...

Perfect!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel Kurt smiling wherever he is.

[ajl_mo]

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2005/09/kurt_vonnegut_o_1.html

Giraffes and hyppopothami and the clap

[jackofclubs]

What will happen now to Kilgore Trout?

[LaTiDa]

"The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.
When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in the particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "So it goes."

SlaughterHouse Five