Kurt Vonnegut has passed away at the age of 84.
Sadly, to date I've read only one of his novels. That being Slaughterhouse Five, about Billy Pilgrim: a man who becomes "unstuck in time" and can go to any moment of his life whenever he wants. In high school I also read his short story "Harrison Bergeron": I thought it was one of the most brilliant things that I'd ever read. Looking back on it now, I think Vonnegut was sadly pretty prescient with "Harrison Bergeron". It's the perfect short story about equality enforced by law and deviation from society being a punishable offense. Someday, I'm going to read Breakfast of Champions and the rest of his classics.
Vonnegut had what might have been the all-time greatest cameo appearance in a movie. It came in 1986's Back to School starring Rodney Dangerfield. I won't spoil it for you if you haven't seen it, but seeing him pop up in the context of that scene was, and still is, quite a hilarious shock.
Even if he had never been a literary giant, he would have had a live worthy of serious consideration. Among other things he was a soldier during the Battle of the Bulge. And he was an eyewitness to the firebombing of Dresden: something that I think no doubt still haunted him years later when he wrote Slaughterhouse Five.
Well, I don't know what else to say in a post like this. He was a great writer and an interesting fellow in his own right.
