Literary Icon Kurt Vonnegut Dies at 84
The man that brought us Breakfast of Champions, Cat’s Cradle and the classic Slaughterhouse Five is no longer with us. Kurt Vonnegut passed away Wednesday evening at the age of 84 from brain injuries incurred after a fall at his Manhatten home.
Vonnegut, who battled depression much of his life, was actually well know for the sense of humor in his work. In his words he would say anything to get a laugh, often in the worst situations.
Vonnegut, who had books banned for obscenity, battled censorship as a member of the ACLU.
He was a true humanist who said the villans in his books were never representative of individuals but of society, culture and history, which were all making a mess of the planet. He implored people in his lectures to be free thinking and heavily criticized the institutions that he thought were dehumanizing.
Though Kurt Vonnegut had taken leave from authoring novels, he remained on the literary scence and in the public eye later in life with his essays and articles, and actually scored a best seller in 2005 with “A Man Without a Country.”
A far cry from the cookie cutter fiction that has become popular today, Kurt Vonnegut probably never would have made it to Oprah’s must read list, but he is a representative of the writing world that will surely be missed by the true literary connoisseur.
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five, ACLU, Man without a Country, Breakfast of Champions
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