Mr. Vonnegut, We'll Miss You

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Dies at Age 84
Apr 12, 11:55 AM EST

The Associated Press

NEW YORK -- In books such as "Slaughterhouse-Five ," "Cat's Cradle," and "Hocus Pocus," Kurt Vonnegut mixed the bitter and funny with a touch of the profound. Vonnegut, regarded by many critics as a key influence in shaping 20th-century American literature, died Wednesday at 84. He had suffered brain injuries after a recent fall at his Manhattan home, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz.

Vonnegut's more than a dozen books, short stories, essays and plays contained elements of social commentary, science fiction and autobiography.

In a statement, Norman Mailer hailed Vonnegut as "a marvelous writer with a style that remained undeniably and imperturbably his own. ... I would salute him our own Mark Twain."

"He was sort of like nobody else," said another fellow author, Gore Vidal. "Kurt was never dull."

A self-described religious skeptic and freethinking humanist, Vonnegut used protagonists such as Billy Pilgrim ("Slaughterhouse-Fiv e") and Eliot Rosewater ("God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater") as transparent vehicles for his points of view.

Like "Catch-22," by Vonnegut's friend, Joseph Heller, "Slaughterhouse-Five " was a World War II novel embraced by opponents of the Vietnam War, linking a so-called "good war" to the unpopular conflict of the 1960s and '70s.

Vonnegut lectured regularly, exhorting audiences to think for themselves and delighting in barbed commentary against the institutions he felt were dehumanizing people.

"He was a man who combined a wicked sense of humor and sort of steady moral compass, who was always sort of looking at the big picture of the things that were most important," said Joel Bleifuss, editor of In These Times, a liberal magazine based in Chicago that featured Vonnegut articles.

Some of Vonnegut's books were banned and burned for alleged obscenity. He took on censorship as an active member of the PEN writers' aid group and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The American Humanist Association, which promotes individual freedom, rational thought and scientific skepticism, made him its honorary president.

Vonnegut said the villains in his books were never individuals, but culture, society and history, which he said were making a mess of the planet.

"I like to say that the 51st state is the state of denial," he told The Associated Press in 2005.

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Works by Kurt Vonnegut
"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-F ive," 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)