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godspeed Kilgore Trout
Apr. 12th, 2007 08:37 amKurt Vonnegut, 84 years old.
My mother had several Vonnegut paperbacks on the bookshelf when I was growing up. I remember reading Cat's Cradle first, puzzled by the image of the hands and string on the cover. I thought it was a strange, sad little story when I was nine. The Vonnegut book I loved above all others though was God Bless You Mr. Rosewater. It was one of those books in my early life that gave me something to believe, a touchstone in the whirlwind.
From the NY Times obituary:
To Mr. Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness. The title character in his 1965 novel, “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater,” summed up his philosophy:
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”
My mother had several Vonnegut paperbacks on the bookshelf when I was growing up. I remember reading Cat's Cradle first, puzzled by the image of the hands and string on the cover. I thought it was a strange, sad little story when I was nine. The Vonnegut book I loved above all others though was God Bless You Mr. Rosewater. It was one of those books in my early life that gave me something to believe, a touchstone in the whirlwind.
From the NY Times obituary:
To Mr. Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness. The title character in his 1965 novel, “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater,” summed up his philosophy:
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”