I was really sad to wake up today and hear about Kurt Vonnegut’s passing. I spent a summer reading as much Vonnegut as I could get my hands on and while it may just be that I didn’t have cable it’s the last time I can remember getting so much constant enjoyment out of reading.
Vonnegut will always be that last summer in Antigonish, Nova Scotia for me where I spent my time with friends going to a pristine lake or the ocean for swimming, random road trips to Halifax for the hell of it, drinking and smoking too much and just generally milking the most out of each and every day. Those four months found a group of us that were constantly swapping Vonnegut books with one another that we managed to scrounge up second hand and turned us into a bunch of quick witted sons of bitches.
I also remember in my third year of university there was newspaper article in the Chronicle Herald that said Vonnegut was dead. Then I saw him in a credit card commercial and thought that was a bit distasteful. I’m sure he would have loved to hear about his own death long before it actually happened.
If you haven't read any of his books yet, you are truly missing out on one of the world's greatest writers.
As he wrote in the Book of Bokonon in Cat's Cradle - It is never a mistake to say good-bye.
1 comment:
I remember that article, but now it's true. I'm a big, big Vonnegut fan as well, as I'm sorry he's gone.
He's left a great body of work though, and once I've read everything, I can start all over again.
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