Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is coming to OSU!!!!
http://www.osu.edu/features/2006/vonnegut/
For those of you not familiar with his work...you are utterly insane. He's one of the greatest authors I've ever read. His most famous work, Slaughterhouse Five, starts with the utterly provocative line: "All this happened, more or less." It's a quasi-autobiographical portrait of a man who has lost chronological perspective. One of the key events in the story is Vonnegut's recollection of the fire bombing of a German city called Dresden during WWII. For those of you who think the Allied forces were models of righteous valor, think again. The allies were involved in numerous acts of terrorism against the German peoples, most (if not all) of which are, of course, never taught in high school history.
Do a google search for bombing of dresden or the like and you'll see what I mean.
Anyway, I'm abso-freaking-lutely thrilled that he's coming to OSU. The last time I saw him was on the Daily Show about a month ago. he was looking quite aged, but he seemed as quick witted as ever.
Another note:
Vonnegut called WWII: "The world's second unsucessful attempt to commit suicide."
you gotta love that.
Leave a note and tell me your favorite Vonnegut novel!
5 comments:
The one and only KV Jr. novel I have read is 'Cat's Cradle' about a guy who invents something called Ice-9 and it another who comes up with a fascinating new religion called Bokanism--it involves foot-rubbing...
All in all, not a bad read. I have Slaughterhouse Five on my shelf, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. I'll have to soon.
Plug, I'm glad you're so excited. That makes me happy.
love,
Olaf
Deadeye Dick! its about a guy and death. He makes friends with a man who will eventually become the Hitler we know today, shoots a pregnant lady, his town blows up... kind of like 'Crime and Punishment' in less flowery words.
Sorry it sounds morbid... but its done in his dry humor. He punctuates it with recipes - you know, life-giving stuff.
Have you seen K.Von's artwork?
I saw ol' Kurty when he was at UW Madison a couple of years back. Not entirely coherent, but freakin' hilarious anyway. More less like he was on The Daily Show, only longer. Yay!
Oops, I meant more OR less. more OR less. Ack.
Slapstick.... but I've only read about five of them. I own almost all of the nice old paperback printings now... recall my top shelf of them that wasn't quite full when I left- its nearing completion.
I'm excited that you get to go see him, I assume the details will be found here.
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