Kurt Vonnegut died today. He was the 20th century Mark Twain, very "American" in many ways and also very willing to say whatever he damn well believed. I went through a period in high school when I read every single book he'd ever written. Slaughterhouse-Five gets the most attention, and it's extremely good, but I think I like Cat's Cradle even more, and Galapagos (with the character Leon Trotsky Trout) has always stayed with me -- mostly the ending I think...or the beginning. I think of him as one of the few white male authors in U.S. literature that could speak with the magical realism/political fury of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Jose Saramago or Milan Kundera. I wish there were more writers or public figures who were as engaged today.
"All this happened, more or less."
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Reason number 4.372 why we are friends. In high school i too read "all of his books" in an effort to - oh I don't know - understand him. Reason number 4, 373 we both picked Anna Karenina because it was the "thickest book on the shelf." Reason number 4,374...
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