Kurt Vonnegut at (Ir)religiosity

Archive for the ‘Kurt Vonnegut’ tag

Where have I been?

I think I’ve been living under a rock.

I have no idea why I waited until now to start reading Kurt Vonnegut. I really think my thought life and my overall intellectual disposition would be much more robust and rich had I introduced myself to his vivid imagery and masterful storytelling. For me, what Howard Zinn has done in terms of decentralizing the dominant narrative of American history, Vonnegut does with literature and fiction beckoning us to own our past while looking to the future with hope that we can retain, however small or insignificant, the better qualities of our human nature.

I started Galapagos a few days ago along with a few of his essays I was able to find online — they’re rocking my world. As soon as I can I plan to plow through Slaughterhouse Five and Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons.

I love this quote from his Bennington College Address in 1970:

“I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that by the time I was twenty-one, some scientist, maybe my brother, would have taken a color photograph of God Almighty — and sold it to Popular Mechanics magazine. Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable. What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.”

Here is an interview he gave a while ago reflecting on his experience as a POW in WWII. It gets really good at the end (the last three minute or so) when he talks about war and cycles of revenge.

Kurt Vonnegut Interview

So do yourself a favor if you haven’t already: go get a Vonnegut book and start reading it immediately. I think you will find it to be very enriching.