Writer Kurt Vonnegut Dies Of Injuries Resulting From Fall
Posted April 12, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Kurt Vonnegut, the controversial satirist whose life was as colourful as his works of fiction, has died at the age of 84 after suffering brain injuries in a fall weeks ago in his Manhattan home.
The author of such works as Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle injected his prose with social commentary and in lectures encouraged his audiences to challenge institutions.
“I will say anything to be funny, often in the most horrible situations,” Vonnegut once said.
The author of 19 novels and dozens of short stories and essays knew a thing or two about horrible situations, having been in many over his lifetime. His mother committed suicide as he prepared to head off to Germany to fight in WWII. Vonnegut was taken captive during the Battle of the Bulge and managed to survive with his fellow prisoners in an underground meat locker bearing the name ‘slaughterhouse-five.’
He was in Dresden when Allied bombs began to fall, killing tens of thousands in the city.
“The firebombing of Dresden explains absolutely nothing about why I write what I write and am what I am,” Vonnegut wrote in his semi-autobiography Fates Worse Than Death.
However the experience undoubtedly affected him, and his battles with depression almost cost him his life in 1984 when he attempted suicide by taking pills and alcohol. He would later joke about how he screwed up the job.
Born in Indianapolis in 1922, Vonnegut studied chemistry at Cornell University before enlisting with the U.S. Army. When he returned from the war, he held down a series of jobs before publishing his first novel, Player Piano, in 1951. He continued to write, despite barbs from critics about his plot choices and style.
However the public didn’t agree – many of his works made the best-seller list even as some of the works were being banned and burned because they were considered by some to be obscene.
Gore Vidal described his novels, which often blended science-fiction with satire, as one of the most creative writers of his generation.
“He was sort of like nobody else,” Vidal said, adding that he, Vonnegut and Norman Mailer were among the last writers who served in the Second World War.
“He was imaginative; our generation of writers didn’t go in for imagination very much. Literary realism was the general style.
“Those of us who came out of the war in the 1940s made sort of the official American prose and it was often a bit on the dull side. Kurt was never dull.”
Vonnegut is survived by his wife, noted photographer Jill Krementz, three children from a previous marriage, and the three children he adopted when his sister died.
Works by Kurt Vonnegut:
(All are books unless otherwise noted:)
“Player Piano,” 1951
“The Sirens of Titan,” 1959
“Canary in a Cat House,” 1961 (short works)
“Mother Night,” 1961
“Cat’s Cradle,” 1963
“God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater,” 1965
“Welcome to the Monkey House,” 1968 (short works)
“Slaughterhouse-Five,” 1969
“Happy Birthday, Wanda June,” 1971 (play)
“Between Time and Timbuktu,” 1972 (TV script)
“Breakfast of Champions,” 1973
“Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons,” 1974 (opinions)
“Slapstick,” 1976
“Jailbird,” 1979
“Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage,” 1981 (essays)
“Deadeye Dick,” 1982
“Galapagos,” 1985
“Bluebeard,” 1987
“Hocus Pocus,” 1990
“Fates Worse than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s,” 1991 (essays)
“Timequake,” 1997
“A Man Without a Country,” 2005 (essays)