Kurt Vonnegut Dead at 84

[Pantagathus]

It made my day to learn that he and Joe Heller were friends... (makes sense though) Something Happened is one of the best American novels of all time.

Interesting enough, I found a 1974 NYT Book Review article on Joseph Heller's Something Happened by none other than Vonnegut...

 

..."Something Happened," if swallowed, could become the dominant myth about the middle- class veterans who came home from that war to become heads of nuclear families. The proposed myth has it that those families were pathetically vulnerable and suffocating. It says that the heads of them commonly took jobs which were vaguely dishonorable or at least stultifying, in order to make as much money as they could for their little families, and they used that money in futile attempts to buy safety and happiness. The proposed myth says that they lost their dignity and their will to live in the process.

 

It says they are hideously tired now.

 

To accept a new myth about ourselves is to simplify our memories--and to place our stamp of approval on what might become an epitaph for our era in the shorthand of history. This, in my opinion, is why critics often condemn our most significant books and poems and plays when they first appear, while praising feebler creations. The birth of a new myth fills them with primitive dread, for myths are so effective...

 

Link is borked so I may post the MS Word file in my blog.

[Moonlapse]

I'm halfway through 'Something Happened' and it certainly seems to be relevant now more than ever. Thanks for recommendation!

[Gaius Octavius]

I met him and his daughter at a party given to raise money for her production of a play based on his 'God Bless You Mr. Rosewater'. Some of my pals and I became 'angels'. Kiss of death.