About Kurt V.

Post 37:

            This won’t be a review. Kurt Vonnegut is my favorite writer. There’s not really a close second. So no critiques. More like a metaphysical fondling. Creepy? Yeah. And still don’t care.

            I don’t care because Vonnegut is the reason I decided to start writing. Not because I wanted to do madcap satirical sci-fi or whatever one would call his style; mostly because I thought he was funny and had something to say. I don’t share his particular brand of cynicism or his politics—my views on the world and religion and economics aren’t even in his ballpark.

            So why do I like him? I think it’s because he’s sad and is doing everything he can to avoid it, knowing all the while he’s fighting a losing battle. For some reason I connect to that.

            People are always going on with that: “I really connect with this…” It usually sounds like a load of crap, but I mean it. There’s something in his pages that gets to me. Vonnegut’s novels are insane, don’t get me wrong, but they are laugh-out-loud funny.

            Now before you go diving in, know that when I say funny, I mean a particular brand. I’m too dumb to try to encapsulate it here—only know that like most things of value, it takes a minute to warm to.

            So try out Cat’s Cradle or Jailbird or Slaughterhouse-5. I’ve read all of them so I can’t really say which is the best. Good news is they’re all really short—one or two day reads if you’re really about it.

            So farewell ye magistrates and nobleman. Go get sad and happy. They come out of the same damn place, I think.

            See you after.