Thursday, April 12, 2007

Kurt Vonnegut, RIP

Kurt Vonnegut, who died on April 11, at the age of 84, was a World War II U.S. Army veteran. Captured and held by the Germans as a prisoner of war in Dresden, he was one of the few survivors of the Allied carpet bombing that destroyed the city in reprisal for the German bombing of Coventry, England.

The experience marked him forever and was the basis for his novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. So far as Vonnegut was concerned, there were no “good wars.”

With his trademark wit that melded humor, perplexity and despair at human folly, Vonnegut wrote in his preface to The Franklin Library's edition of that memorable work:

The Dresden atrocity, tremendously expensive and meticulously planned, was so meaningless, finally, that only one person on the entire planet got any benefit from it. I am that person. I wrote this book, which earned a lot of money for me in royalties and made my reputation, such as it is. One way or another, I got two or three dollars for every person killed. Some business I'm in.

May Kurt Vonnegut finally rest in peace.

Adam Simms

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