Well. So it goes. Kurt Vonnegut died today at 84. It got me thinking, it's not that I've been expecting a new (and brilliant) novel anytime soon, but I do think I'm going to miss him. The question becomes: how do you miss someone you've never met?
What forces Vonnegut to impose his presence on the text is his complete inability to remove himself at all from the act of communication at the core of any work of literature. He revels in that involvement. He has mentioned his desire, what he implies is a universal need of all human beings, for some "soul-deep fun." (He uses this term as a synonym for greatness.)
That's all I've got at the moment. Today I recommend: Mother Night. He won't let you down.
1 comment:
i dont even deserve to be mentioned, i am posting so late on this one. i dont know what happened. i got sucked into the facebook vortex or something.
to me, knowing an author is one of the greatest gifts of being alive. now, i do kind of hate it when people throw down biographical information in class. but i do think we can know, we can know deeply. the thing is, i rarely read enough of an author to truly know them. but last summer, i felt like thomas merton became a great friend. one i long for, though i can never know him. so yes, i understand.
if my students can ever know authors like this, i will have succeeded. what are the chances of that...veerrry low.
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