Kurt Vonnegut: A Requiem for the USA
Official WebsiteAll the other species are dying and so will we. I’m whistling as I walk past the graveyard... whistling as beautifully as I can
Wikipedia (with great links)
In These Times senior editor (with links to his articles)
5 comments:
Uhm, haha. Do you know what that asterisk is supposed to represent? ;)
i.e. Have you read Breakfast of Champions? (great book, and rad author, btw!)
Peace,
eric
Sounds as though Vonnegut is about ready for God's loving attentions. Always the cynic, he finally appears to have exhausted all childish expectations of finding love in this life. But like most cynics, it's likely that he sees himself in any case as the ultimate expression of self-giving, the quintessential myth of the sinner.
I recall reading Breakfast of Champions at a time in my life that despair - albeit self-inflicted - was the touchstone of my outlook. Since there was no Holy Spirit or anything even resembling the Holy Spirit for me at the time, I saw the book as a kind of summation, a justification for every fear I'd ever experienced and Vonnegut a hero. I'm now grateful that not many years after that time God showed me that fulfillment had nothing to do with seeking to be filled but rather in filling. I pray for as much for Vonnegut.
John Lowell
Vonnegut's cynicism is incompatible with the Incarnation.
Cynic - what a person becomes after they've: been lied to, been cheated, been misled, been ripped off, been sold a bill of goods, been promised something by someone they believe in and\or trust only to find out that their trust has been used as a vehicle to get something from them for nothing, had their view of the world they live in changed from one of mutual trust to having to constantly look over their shoulder.
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Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows. David T. Wolf (1943 - )
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth. Lillian Hellman (1905 - 1984), The Little Foxes, 1939
Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves. Robert Anton Wilson
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Using the above descriptions, the American Founding Fathers, Oscar Wilde, H. L. Mencken, Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw, P. J. O'Rourke, Woody Allen, and Kurt Vonnegut are all cynics.
I haven't read much Vonnegut, but his Sirens of Titan has some strong affinitities with Walker Percy.
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