Kurt Vonnegut is dead

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut is dead! :( I will miss his writing!

More tomorrow... its too late in the night to be getting this kind of news!

Update in the morning:

This New York Times link has all their reviews of Vonnegut's books as well as some other interesting links at the bottom.

I am at a loss for words... not that a person dieing at age 84 is an unexpected thing... but I am sad because I'll miss Kurt and his acerbic wit. We know the world will need someone like Kurt to tell it as it is - in a world of "twerps", Kurt's sanity and moral rectitude will be missed more in the next 50+ years to come than the 60+ that have gone by since WW II.

All I can say for now is to quote Robert Scholes, who apparently summarized Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse Five' in the New York Times Book Review with:

'Be kind. Don't hurt. Death is coming for all of us anyway, and it is better to be Lot's wife looking back through salty eyes than the Deity that destroyed those cities of the plain in order to save them.'

The bird has flown (screenshot of the official Kurt Vonnegut website below!)... have fun wherever you are, Kurt.


Update - April 13, 2007
- Farewell to a master
- An extract from his book, A Man Without a Country, which I read just 4-5 weeks back!
- You can read the 1977 interview from The Paris Review online. It is also part of the recent collection of Paris Review interviews published as a book.
- WaPO Book World columnist, Michael Dirda conducted an online chat session on Thursday "to discuss the life, work and legacy of author Kurt Vonnegut, who died Wednesday at 84." One of the people who joined this session pointed to an interesting interview from Playboy magazine from the 70s with both Vonnegut and Heller. Also, the transcript had a link to a Vonnegut photo gallery