Kurt Vonnegut died today at the age of 84 and my heart is sad. I first read Vonnegut when I was in high school. My sister lent me her copy of Timequake and I read it within two or three days, laughing myself to tears.
I devoured his other books and had the chance to hear him speak at the University of Iowa when I was a student there. So many people turned up for the free lecture that more than half the crowd had to sit in a separate room, myself included, while his voice was transmitted over the sound system. We all sat attentive, soaking up every word. It didn’t really matter that we couldn’t see him. We could hear the words.
His humor, intelligence, and sincerity will be missed. I know I am not alone in being thankful that we have a record of it.
The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.
So it goes…
-Slaughterhouse Five
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2 comments:
Beautiful.
I never read "Slaughterhouse Five" when I was young, but turned to it when I was older during a stressful time. Was a life-changer.
Nice tribute.
Thanks Andria. It was one of those moments where I just had to say something, and my blog seemed like the best place to do it.
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