Marc Schultz

A Country Without Kurt
April 12, 2007

I don't want to go on and on, there's more worthy tributes coming I'm sure, but Kurt Vonnegut has always been one of my absolute favorites. It was reported on PW.com this morning that he has passed away, at the age of 84, following "a recent fall in his Manhattan home."

Which reminds me of a story he tells at some point in Fates Worse than Death, a 1992 book of essays PW called "likely to disappoint even Vonnegut fans" (to which I say: hogwash). In it, he talks about how much he and his late, beloved sister thought seeing someone fall over was the funniest thing in the world. I don't have the book in front of me, so I'm paraphrasing, but the story he tells about it goes something like this:

Vonnegut was at a ballet, watching with the rest of a large, respectful audience. In the middle of the performance, a dancer leapt offstage, followed immediately by a series of crashing sounds like something heavy being dropped in a metal bucket, which was then chucked down a flight of concrete stairs. Vonnegut, of course, went into hysterics. Loud hysterics. He was the only one laughing.

There's another great story in there about Vonnegut and his college buddies stealing all the benches from a local park, as well as some interesting family stuff (his sister, his briefly institutionalized son), and plenty on one of his favorite subjects, death by cigarettes ("smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide"). He threatened for a long time to sue Big Tobacco for false advertising, and as recently as 2005: "Brown and Williams, on their package, promise to kill me. And they haven't done it. I mean, here I am 83." With a wrongful death charge to back it up, maybe he'll get justice yet.

God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut. You'll be missed.

Posted by Marc Schultz on April 12, 2007 | Comments (1)