Father Kurt

I was probably too young to read Breakfast Of Champions when I first noticed it on my stepfather's bookshelf. Actually, I didn't read it when I first noticed it -- with its Wheaties-slogan title and its garish orange, yellow and blue jacket, I probably thought it was a book about sports. But adolescent boredom eventually led me to pull it down and look through it. I remember being so surprised that there were pictures: the author's own artless line drawings which illustrated the darkly comic text in a way that reminded me of The Little Prince, which we had just read in English class. I finished Breakfast of Champions in an afternoon, and I remember feeling changed... more grown-up in some way, because I had read and understood and genuinely liked this ironic adult novel.

Later there were trips to Book Thrift, the store where used paperbacks were sold by thickness; the owner/cashier would stack up your purchases, measure the stack height with a ruler, and charge a dollar per inch. I got Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Wampeters, Foma & Granfaloons, and my favorite (to this day) Slapstick. All through high school, college and life beyond, I had the pleasure of anticipating and purchasing Kurt Vonnegut's new books as they were released: Jailbird, Palm Sunday, Galapagos, Bluebeard, Deadeye Dick, Hocus Pocus. To me, reading Vonnegut was like listening to Bob Dylan or even The Beatles: a shared generational experience (although again, I was born a bit too late to be an actual member of the relevant generation). But it felt personal at the same time, because I had discovered this author for myself and I could always identify with at least some of the themes in each book.

I loved Kurt Vonnegut for his prose and his philosophy, his ideas and his ideals. His catchphrases became part of my consciousness and his persona, expressed through the lectures, interviews and essays of his later life, became very dear to me.

He was born on the 11th and he died on the 11th.

So it goes.