Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Dies at Age 84

magicbastarder

NEW YORK (AP) - Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as ``Slaughterhouse-Five'' and ``Cat's Cradle,'' died Wednesday. He was 84.

Vonnegut, who often marveled that he had lived so long despite his lifelong smoking habit, had suffered brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.

The author of at least 19 novels, many of them best-sellers, as well as dozens of short stories, essays and plays, Vonnegut relished the role of a social critic. He lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.

``I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations,'' Vonnegut, whose watery, heavy-lidded eyes and unruly hair made him seem to be in existential pain, once told a gathering of psychiatrists.

A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater as transparent vehicles for his points of view. He also filled his novels with satirical commentary and even drawings that were only loosely connected to the plot. In ``Slaughterhouse-Five,'' he drew a headstone with the epitaph: ``Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.''

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6551282,00.html

am posting it here because of his well-known humanist stance.

Crucifix

So it goes.

Red Hand

So it goes.

He will be missed. I loved Slaughterhouse 5.:(

monkeyfudge

That's a real shame.

One of my favourite writers.

I'm currently reading 'The Sirens of Titan'

Beecher

"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General..." - from "Harrison Bergeron," 1961

RIP