Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Dead at 84

Best Known For Dark Satire In "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Cat's Cradle"

(CBS/AP)  Vonnegut was born on Nov. 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, and studied chemistry at Cornell University before joining the Army. His mother killed herself just before he left for Germany during World War II, where he was quickly taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge. He was being held in Dresden when Allied bombs firebombed the city.

"The firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am what I am," Vonnegut wrote in "Fates Worse Than Death," his 1991 autobiography of sorts.

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Photos: The Life Of Kurt Vonnegut

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But he spent 23 years struggling to write about the ordeal, which he survived by huddling with other POWs inside an underground meat locker labeled slaughterhouse-five.

The novel that emerged, in which Pvt. Pilgrim is transported from Dresden by time-traveling aliens, was published at the height of the Vietnam War and solidified his reputation as an iconoclast.

After World War II, he reported for Chicago's City News Bureau, then did public relations for General Electric, a job he loathed. He wrote his first novel, "Player Piano," in 1951, followed by "The Sirens of Titan," "Canary in a Cat House" and "Mother Night," making ends meet by selling Saabs on Cape Cod.

Critics ignored him at first, then denigrated his deliberately bizarre stories and disjointed plots as haphazardly written science fiction. But his novels became cult classics, especially "Cat's Cradle" in 1963, in which scientists create "ice-nine," a crystal that turns water solid and destroys the earth.

He retired from novel writing in his later years, but continued to publish short articles. He had a best-seller in 2005 with "A Man Without a Country," a collection of his nonfiction, including jabs at the Bush administration ("upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography") and the uncertain future of the planet.

He called the book's success "a nice glass of champagne at the end of a life."

Vonnegut, who had homes in Manhattan and the Hamptons in New York, adopted his sister's three young children after she died. He also had three children with his first wife, Jane Marie Cox, and later adopted a daughter, Lily, with his second wife, Krementz.

Vonnegut once said that of all the ways to die, he would prefer to go out in an airplane crash on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. He often joked about the difficulties of old age.

"When Hemingway killed himself he put a period at the end of his life; old age is more like a semicolon," Vonnegut told the AP.

"My father, like Hemingway, was a gun nut and was very unhappy late in life. But he was proud of not committing suicide. And I'll do the same, so as not to set a bad example for my children."

[johngorrind]

It's interesting to read what Vonnegut's peers and contemporaries had to say. Mailer said he was our Mark Twain. Talese said he wasn't a mean guy. Vidal said he was unique and imaginative. Wolfe said he the only writer close to being our Voltaire.

In any regard, he knew how to use the power of the pen. As much as depression haunted him and he ultimately philosophized that "life is a crock," he had the good sense and courage to rally both his imagination, humor, outrage and pour in into fiction that jousted with the murderous elite of the planet.

Few writers have been able to balance their dismal personal views on life with a higher moral calling and infuse them to great effect. It's one helluva person who can do that- and he is a great role model for anyone aspiring to either write or strike some compromise with their own despair.

[randalds]

What's truly disgusting is that CBS puts garbage like the Anna Nicole Smith story in the "real" news section and puts the passing of a legendary author in "Entertainment". It's an slap in the face to Vonnegut and one can only conclude that the CBS editors are all either younger the 40 or functionally illiterate. Either that or they are those few book critics who just didn't understand Kurt. Shame for them and shame on them.

[randalds]

A giant of an author. Though I have no doubt he would laugh at the idea his passing should be marked as one would the passing of a Mark Twain. He had no contemporary equal in modern times.

Funny but his passing makes me want to gather some good friends around, drink lots of cheap wine, smoke some of nature's own and sit up all night talking about his books (with Dylan on the record player of course), just like in the early 70's. Gawd I suddenly feel a little older.

[meyergd]

My Ph.D. advisor was a close friend of Kurt Vonnegut's during his time as writer-in-residence at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. I was privileged to meet with the two for beers in 1968 when Vonnegut was working on both Welcome to the Monkeyhouse and Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut was age 45-46, sharp as a tack, and I was overwhelmed. I simply listened to the two of them talk and tucked it all away. Now I am a "geezer" myself and I understand much better the wisdom to which I was so privileged to hear. My departure from Iowa City saved my advisor's sanity. We were so fortunate that Kurt Vonnegut graced us with his presence this time through.

[deadanimal]

ms38654ob,

i'm glad your post is first. it's very appropriate. that was the very first thing that popped into my head as i read the headline of Vonnegut's death.

sad day.

[ms38654ob]

So it goes...