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Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.                                    Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who dropped the Jr. portion of his name after his father’s death, was an eminent American writer in the tradition of Mark Twain. He grew up in Indianapolis and is the son of a family of prominent architects.  He wrote for his high school and Cornell University college newspaper. The University of Chicago eventually permitted him to use his novel, Cat’s Cradle, for his thesis to complete his masters degree.

Vonnegut enlisted in the army in 1942, and was sent to two universities for training in mechanical engineering, and then deployed to the European battlefields of WW2, where he became separated from his battalion, was caught by the German Army and ended up as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany. While there, Allied forces bombed Dresden, despite the fact that it only had cultural treasures but no military significance. Along with his fellow prisoners, he was sent to bury bodies after the bombing. Vonnegut reported: “But there were too many corpses to bury. So instead the Nazis sent in troops with flamethrowers. All these civilians’ remains were burned to ashes.”  He was one of only 7 allied prisoners of war to survive the bombing. He wrote about his eyewitness experience in his most widely known work, Slaughter House Five, of which a movie was also made.

He wrote novels, short stories and essays. On a personal note, Bonnett and I have read most all his works and found them to be bitingly funny and poignant commentaries on hypocrisy in a multitude of political, social and personal of guises.  

“Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God. It is so extraordinarily full of magic and in tough times of my life I can listen to music and it makes such a difference.”

“Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”

“New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.”

“I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.”

"Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God."

“There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too.”

“Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.”

                              

“Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”

“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.”

“Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.”

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”

- Kurt Vonnegut  (1922-2007)

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Serving up proper portions in book criticism…

“Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.”

- Kurt Vonnegut ( 1922-2007)

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