Kurt Vonnegut, the Art of Fiction No. 64 (1977)
theparisreview.org
theparisreview.org
I would love to see his grave just to find out if he did get the epitaph he suggested in Slaughterhouse 5:
"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."
> it's the conflict between his relentless hope for the universe and the brutal cynicism he developed during his time spent in it.
As for the war being a formidable cause for this worldview, I guess so. I was very close to my grandfather, a grizzly WWII veteran, for largely how it impacted him this way (I still walk around repeating the eerie phrase he would repeat during war stories: "They taught us to kill, but never how to turn it off," and how he resented it all). Vonnegut and much later Joseph Heller, I could never put down. My grandfather passed years prior, but I could find his vicious cynicism despair and unwavering humor in their writings I assume time in the army helped solidify.
I was abroad when Vonnegut died. I was studying in the Middle East, and the library at the universiy had a table with a bunch of Vonnegut books one day. I was so happy and I commented to friends how wonderful it was. Then they told me he died last night. I screamed loudly in the library, scaring many people. I went outside and smoked a cigarette, and was in funk the next few days. Like someone else commenting, I slowly stopped reading so I do not run out of his work.
In tribute, speaking of shameless hacks, I would watch Comedy Central re-runs of Dangerfield's Back to School just to see Vonnegut's cameo and here the comedian scream: "D [on a paper you wrote, Kurt, for my English class], SCREW YOU VONNEGUT!"
The idea of someone so influential taking himself so lightly has always been an influence for my "I will make inappropriate comical comments at everything, consequences be damned approach" I cannot even help it anymore.
Now that I am (relatively) older and the immediate luster of Slaughterhouse Five has worn off in the opinion of my peers, I think I have a better idea of what I love about him so much beyond his wit and style and candor -- it's the conflict between his relentless hope for the universe and the brutal cynicism he developed during his time spent in it. (I'm fortunate enough to have never been in a war, but I can imagine that witnessing the horrors of Dresden pretty much eradicates any aggregate good-will you might have towards the ultimate fate of humanity.)
My favorite portion of his writing is in an essay that's referred to as Vonnegut's Blues for America (apparently adapted from a graduation speech he gave to Eastern Washington University in 2004, three years before his passing). The entire thing is [here](http://www.rense.com/general69/vonnegutsblues.htm) -- and mired with the political venom that laces most of his later stuff, but the part I love:
No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful.
If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD WAS MUSIC
...
It makes practically everybody fonder of life than he or she would be without it. Even military bands, although I am a pacifist, always cheer me up. And I really like Strauss and Mozart and all that, but the priceless gift that African Americans gave the whole world when they were still in slavery was a gift so great that it is now almost the only reason many foreigners still like us at least a little bit. That specific remedy for the worldwide epidemic of depression is a gift called the blues. All pop music today jazz, swing, be-bop, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Stones, rock-and-roll, hip-hop, and on and on is derived from the blues.
A gift to the world? One of the best rhythm-and-blues combos I ever heard was three guys and a girl from Finland playing in a club in Krakow, Poland.
The wonderful writer Albert Murray, who is a jazz historian and a friend of mine among other things, told me that during the era of slavery in this country -- an atrocity from which we can never fully recover -- the suicide rate per capita among slave owners was much higher than the suicide rate among slaves.
Murray says he thinks this was because slaves had a way of dealing with depression, which their white owners did not: They could shoo away Old Man Suicide by playing and singing the Blues. He says something else which also sounds right to me. He says the blues can't drive depression clear out of a house, but can drive it into the corners of any room where it's being played. So please remember that.