R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut

Since I know several people who were greatly influenced and big fans of Mr. Vonnegut, I thought it only proper that one of them (and not me) write his in memoriam for le blog.

"I Am Not the Best Person To Write About Kurt Vonnegut" by Ergo, Chris

I am not the best person to write in memoriam of Kurt Vonnegut. I have not read most of his ouevre. The two books of his that stick out most in my memory are Slaughterhouse Five and Sirens of Titan, Slaughterhouse because it was good and Sirens because it bored me. I am not a secular humanist. I’m not much of a secular anything. I like my stories to have spectacular heroes and dastardly villains. I have a strain of elitism in me that is hard to put down. And yet… And yet…

And yet I can say that the world was lessened by the death of Kurt Vonnegut. On NPR yesterday, (I drive a van as my employment, and ergo I listen to the radio a lot) one commentator likened him to Mark Twain. And the analogy was apt. They both witnessed the horrors of their generation, witnessed the evil “good men” do. Both had a wit unparalleled, and made it known through their criticism. And despite seeing racisms and genocides and firebombings, they both never lost all their enthusiasm for humanity.
I am an idealist. At various times in my life, I hung that title around my neck, either in shame or in honor. I believed, believe, and will believe that people are generally good deep down. I am a person, therefore, that is mostly likely to become the bitterest, most disgusted cynic and misanthrope of all. If I see the atrocities of this world presented to my face in living color, it may just shatter me. And yet…
And yet, Kurt Vonnegut never claimed to be an idealist. He never claimed to believe in any greater vision of humanity. And if he never lost that spark of innocence in his portrayal of humanity, if Billy Pilgrim never was irredeemably soiled by the events at the slaughterhouse number five, if he never let the darkness of the world swallow him, then that’s something. He gave me hope, even if he never intended to. He gave me a vision that humanity, that humanity that we mean when we speak about the Civil Rights movement, that humanity we believe in when we talk about the Renaissance. He gave me a vision of humanity that will, if not move forward, endure.
And the world is a brighter place for it.