Version 7.0ish. Digital Humanities. Running. Pedagogy. Linux.

Kurt Vonnegut is dead at 84.

I don’t really know what to say. The first time I read Vonnegut was when I was fourteen. A friend told me about Breakfast Of Champions so I went to the local library and borrowed it.

Reading that book broke my brain I think.

So much of what I was thinking, and still am thinking, Vonnegut wrote on those pages. It is hard to put into words how great reading Vonnegut felt. A few of my friends were also very interested in him and, despite our later differences, we could always talk about Vonnegut or reference Kilgore Trout together.

As I have said before, it is a pretty troubling thought that someone sixty years my senior is one of the people whom I relate to the most. Into his eighties Vonnegut’s writing about contemporary issues was frighteningly right on. When I was reading A Man Without A Country last year it was somewhat comforting, as the world spirals into the void around us, that someone else understood.

Take care, old friend.

Read in 2005: A Man Without A Country by Kurt Vonnegut.

Yesterday I sat down and read Kurt Vonnegut’s latest book A Man Without A Country. I’d read most of it before; the majority of the book is taken from his writing for In These Times. However, reading through the book reminded how much I enjoy Vonnegut. It’s probably a pretty sad state of affairs when one of the people I relate to most is sixty years my senior.  Anyhow, here is an excerpt from the book.

Update-Vonnegut recently spoke to NPR about science, evolution, and some of his early books.

Kurt Vonnegut turned 83 last week. Backwards City has a ton of links up to celebrate including my favorite, Vonnegut’s final conversation with famed fictional author Kilgore Trout.

Kurt Vonnegut says the end is near.

I am sad to report the suicide of my favorite fictional author Kilgore Trout.

Read in 1996 and 2003: Breakfast Of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut.