Kurt Vonnegut can no longer be known as “the best living American Author,” a phrase coined by Graham Greene and repeated on the dust jackets of every one of Vonnegut’s books. Vonnegut, author of “Slaughterhouse Five” and “Cat’s Cradle,” died on April 12. His death came from complications that arose from irreversible brain damage he received after falling in his Manhattan home a few of weeks ago. It’s funny to think that a man who survived being a POW, the bombing of Dresden and a suicide attempt would be done in by gravity. And so it goes.
When I was in high school, I remember sitting on my then-boyfriend’s bed and talking about comic books, ideas, film, people at school, everything. It was in one of these sessions he told me about Kurt Vonnegut, a recommendation from his English- teacher mother, as an author I would love.
I told him that he had to be joking. I did not read science fiction. As far as I could tell, it was not what I considered real literature. Competition for my bookshelves, with the exception of a few “Sailor Moon” mangas, was intense.
He gave me “Welcome to the Monkey House” and told me to read the title story. That was all it took. I fell in love with Billy the Poet, Nancy and the movement that the poet stood for. After that, instead of talking to my boyfriend, I read everything that I could find in his house related to Vonnegut. In fact, I dressed up as a suicide hostess the following Halloween, and you have no idea how hard purple body stockings are to find.
Though the relationship with my boyfriend didn’t last, my friendship with Vonnegut’s works did. They moved in, found homes on my bookshelves and occasionally underneath my pillow.
Vonnegut was the first author that I claimed as my own. Vonnegut was my first literary love. So, when I heard that he died two weeks ago, I felt a loss that I had not ever experienced. Then I realized that Vonnegut had over the years made the move from friend to family. Maybe not immediate family, but a distant uncle that always gave the best birthday presents or advice.
It is strange to think that the world will not be receiving anything else from Vonnegut, but with 12 full novels published and a number of short stories, at least we will not run out anytime soon.
But, there is sadness in the idea that I will never experience a new character from the Dresden survivor and that we will never hear another one of his many conversations live again. And so it goes.
“And so it goes,” the meandering theme of “Slaughterhouse Five” that follows the main character around like a sad puppy through the tragedies of his life, seems to be the most fitting phrase here.
Things end. People die. And so it goes. Even though the man is gone, his contributions live on my bookshelves, local libraries, and in the mouths of counter-culture, literary-savvy high school kids everywhere. Unlike the main character in “Slaughterhouse Five,” Vonnegut found the realistic alternative to immortality.