If he were still alive, Kurt Vonnegut would be one century old today. I know this for certain, because throughout high school and college, I celebrated “Vonnegut Day” with a fervor on par with the run-up to Christmas. I would wear my Vonnegut T-shirt, carry around stacks of his books, and say intensely obnoxious things that only a teenager would say. Things like: “Aren’t you going to wish me a happy Vonnegut Day?”
If you are an avid reader, and you’re incredibly fortunate, you may find that one author you connect with on a primal level. Flipping through the pages of anything written by this person feels like a visit with an old friend. And for me, that old friend was Kurt Vonnegut. He certainly helped make me the writer, the traveler, and the human being I am today.
Reflecting on Kurt Vonnegut’s works on the centennial of his birth, what’s interesting is that I don’t think much about the works themselves. Plot points, characters, even specific turns of phrase don’t stand out in my mind as much as the feeling his works created in me. Sparking my imagination with very real-feeling people immersed in fantastical situations. Viewing events with a world-weary sense of humor. And, above all, having compassion and empathy for humanity, and human beings, not just in spite of our many flaws…but because of them.
Like so many others, I discovered Kurt Vonnegut in high school. It was the summer after my sophomore year, when I spent a month studying Spanish and living with a host family in Mexico. Back in the day before Kindles, I packed along a stack of ratty paperbacks. About midway through that trip, I found myself tearing through a half-dozen Vonnegut books in a matter of days: Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, Bluebeard, and so on.
Returning home, I made my way through the rest of his works. And I mean everything. Every last word he wrote, I devoured. By the time I got to college, I’d already decided to be an English major and was seriously considering becoming a professional Vonnegut scholar, as if that were a viable career path. (No less viable than “guidebook writer,” I suppose.)
Which is Vonnegut’s best book? It’s difficult to choose anything but Slaughterhouse-Five. As a young GI fighting in World War II, Vonnegut was captured by the Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge. He was taken as a prisoner of war to Dresden, Germany, where on the night of February 13, 1945, he lived through the Allied firebombing of that city — which killed an estimated 25,000 people.
Later in life, as Vonnegut gained renown as an author — first of short stories, then of pulpy science fiction, and eventually as a significant literary voice — everyone wondered when he’d write about his Dresden experience. When he finally did, it was in the most outlandishly creative, most Vonnegutian way possible: His descriptions of a flattened and scorched Dresden were interwoven with the tale of Billy Pilgrim, a young GI who was “unstuck in time” — hopping back and forth between different points within his own lifetime, including the time he was abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. Vonnegut called his masterwork Slaughterhouse-Five, after the building in which Pilgrim (and the author himself) took shelter to survive the firebombing.
During high school and college, I re-read Slaughterhouse-Five so many times I practically had it memorized. And I listened to Vonnegut’s audio recording of the book so often that now I hear his voice in my head when I read it. It is, to be sure, a marvelous book — an evocative war story that’s also wildly imaginative, darkly hilarious, and aching with humanity.
I had other favorites, too — chief among them the underrated Bluebeard, about an aging, reclusive Abstract Expressionist painter who is prodded and inspired by a nosy neighbor to create his finest work. Other quintessential books that I particularly enjoyed were Cat’s Cradle, Mother Night, Galápagos, and the essay collection Palm Sunday. And, of course, there’s Breakfast of Champions, which Vonnegut filled with his own hand-drawn illustrations.
Vonnegut cut his teeth writing for his high school newspaper, which made his prose style lean, efficient, and to the point. Like Hemingway, his novels are concise and move swiftly. He tells stories that feel much bigger than the pages that contain them. Sometimes I worry my writing style is too “basic” and unadorned. When I read Vonnegut, I remember that’s by design.
Vonnegut recognizes that life can be full of tragedy and sadness, sometimes oppressively so. (He experienced this firsthand, far more than most, from digging out charred civilian corpses after the Dresden firebombing, to his mother taking her own life, to the tragically young deaths of his beloved sister, Alice, and her husband.) But he also taught us that, when given the choice between laughing or crying, the best choice is to laugh — “since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.” My family and friends are perplexed, sometimes distressed, at my capacity to crack jokes even in the grimmest of circumstances. I learned it from Vonnegut.
There are few true villains in Vonnegut’s works; what villains you do encounter have complicated, often understandable motivations; and his heroes are severely flawed. He has taught entire generations of young Americans that being compassionate and empathetic is cool. His one piece of advice to newborns entering life on this earth: “God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”
On a personal note, I had the incredible good fortune to have two personal encounters with Mr. Vonnegut, at precisely the moment that my interest in his works was peaking.
Early in my college career, a friend of mine who attended Indiana University told me that Vonnegut would be speaking on campus one weeknight. A friend and I piled into my little Toyota Corolla and drove more than four hours, each way, to attend his one-hour lecture. It was entirely worth the long journey. Vonnegut held the audience rapt as he discussed his works, pondered his quirky approach to life, and took questions. The most thrilling moment came when he stood at a chalkboard and illustrated a system he’d devised to plot stories on an axis — tracking how the protagonist moves between ill fortune and good fortune as the story progresses. The big epiphany was that the narrative arc of the New Testament precisely matches Cinderella. (You can find old clips of Vonnegut doing this presentation online; it’s also explained in his book Palm Sunday.)
A couple of years later, during my senior year, my college — Ohio Wesleyan University — made a stunning announcement: Kurt Vonnegut would be coming to campus. By that time, my Vonnegut idolatry was well-known, maybe even notorious, among my professors and classmates in the OWU English department. One professor, Dr. Peterson, pulled some strings to have the student board — of which I was a member — attend dinner with Kurt Vonnegut before his lecture. And then, in an incredibly kind gesture, Dr. Peterson ensured that I got to sit at the table right next to my literary hero.
Vonnegut was tall, mellow, and weary. By that time, he was in his mid-seventies; he’d just published Timequake, a spiritual sequel to Slaughterhouse-Five that he claimed would be his final book. At that point in his life, I can only imagine how many fawning fans he’d politely endured, so I tried to stay restrained and mostly just listen.
I recall he lamented the miserable state of cinema in those days. I generally agreed, but wondered if he was familiar with Pulp Fiction, which hinted at something innovative. He was disinterested and quickly changed the subject. I may have failed, but at least I attempted to introduce Quentin Tarantino to Kurt Vonnegut.
After those precious few moments with Vonnegut, and after graduation, I decided that academia — and the prospect of becoming a professional Vonnegut expert — wasn’t the right fit for me. Somehow, I wound up on a path to becoming a professional traveler instead. Like the protagonist of many Vonnegut tales, I certainly didn’t see that coming.
These days, Kurt Vonnegut plays almost no role in my day-to-day life. On a shelf in my basement, you’ll find a little shrine consisting of a multitude of paperbacks and a votive candle featuring the great author. But even that, I barely pay attention to anymore. It’s just part of the detritus of my personal past, charged with fond memories but mostly ignored…like a box of dusty baseball cards or a dented trumpet from high school marching band.
But the great thing about a literary soulmate is that you never really outgrow them. Vonnegut’s influence still hides out in everything that I do — both consciously and, I’m sure, subconsciously. Kurt Vonnegut’s insatiable curiosity, his keen observational eye for both beauty and foibles, his ability to gather and synthesize nuggets and notions and inspirations, and his lifelong quest to more deeply understand humanity as a collection of fascinating and flawed individuals — these are all tenets of being a great traveler.
Not to mention, as he said to a howling audience one night nearly 30 years ago in Bloomington, Indiana: “We are here on earth to fart around, and don’t let anyone tell you different.”
I’m just one of millions of people who have been touched, in ways small and big, by Vonnegut’s unique and beautiful way of seeing our world. And so today, on behalf of all of us, let me just say: Happy one hundredth birthday. And thank you.