When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that 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."
-Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five (1969).
Last night, around the time that I was blathering on about the worst show on television, the news started to break that the world was now populated by one fewer Great American Novelist (and we're down to so few!); Kurt Vonnegut had died at the age of 84.I make a poor eulogist for Vonnegut. I've read nearly everything he ever published, but honestly, I hadn't looked at any of it since about 1999. I disagreed to varying degrees with most of his views on politics and religion. This was a man who genuinely disliked most of the world and loathed or at least distrusted its precepts; but such are the men and women that so often make great artists. At least three of his books (Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle, and Breakfast of Champions) are, in my inexpert estimation, certifiable works of genius, and have largely stayed with me since I read them back in college. Many of his others would also rank among the better books I've ever read.
I think Vonnegut often gets unfairly labeled as a sort of definitional artifact of "his time," which in turn is often unfairly labeled as "the sixties"; bizarre treatment for an author who produced valuable work for parts of six decades. It's true that Vonnegut resonated particularly well with sixties audiences (or at least with college students in the sixties). But Vonnegut covered difficult topics in ways that hadn't been done before, wrote from perspectives no one else thought of, and adopted a kind of otherworldly-yet-conversational style that was entirely his and has never really been emulated since. It strikes me as lazy and irresponsible to attempt to confine a talent like his to a particular generation. Even worse, to label him a "humorist" or (most laughably of all) a "science-fiction writer"; Vonnegut's novels were often quite funny and often (but certainly not always) took fantastical turns, but these labels couldn't possibly do justice to his body of work. Vonnegut was insightful, often moving, and refreshingly original, qualities that no temptingly easy label (other than, perhaps, "Great American Novelist") can capture.
And so on.
