Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer born and raised in Indianapolis, noted for wryly satirical novels that frequently used postmodern techniques as well as elements of fantasy…
Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer born and raised in Indianapolis, noted for wryly satirical novels that frequently used postmodern techniques as well as elements of fantasy and science fiction. ◦ ◦ He was a humanist who identified with the label in part because he tried to behave decently without any expectation of rewards or punishments after death, and his German-American ancestors called themselves "Freethinkers," which he considered the same sort of thing. ◦ He was named honorary president of the American Humanist Association in 1992 and held that position through the last fifteen years of his life. ◦ Vonnegut attended Cornell University but withdrew in January 1943 and enlisted in the U.S. Army; he was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and interned in Dresden, where he survived the Allied bombing of the city in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned. ◦ He later worked as a public relations writer in upstate New York before pursuing fiction full-time, and in 1963 the University of Chicago granted him a master's degree in anthropology after he submitted *Cat's Cradle* as a thesis. ◦ He credited Ida Young, his family's African-American cook and housekeeper during the first decade of his life, for raising him and giving him values, stating that "she gave me decent moral instruction and was exceedingly nice to me," and that "the compassionate, forgiving aspects of [his] beliefs" came from her. ◦
Vonnegut's work is marked by an essentially fatalistic worldview that nonetheless embraces modern humanist beliefs. ◦ He maintained that humanists do not worship humanity but look at it honestly, evidenced by his statement, "Evolution can go to hell as far as I am concerned. What a mistake we are." ◦ On war, he argued that World War II was fought for near-Holy motives, but he stood convinced that the brand of justice in which the Allies dealt, wholesale bombings of civilian populations, was blasphemous, and that the enemy having done it first had nothing to do with the moral problem. ◦ He believed jokes can be noble and that laughs are exactly as honorable as tears, since both are responses to frustration and exhaustion, though he preferred laughter because there is less cleaning up to do afterward. ◦ He observed that the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes but often demand the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings, noting that this is Moses, not Jesus. ◦ He urged people to notice when they are happy and to exclaim or murmur or think, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is." ◦ He also declared, "I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." ◦
Vonnegut pursued fiction writing full-time after developing reservations about what he considered the deceitfulness of public relations. ◦ He withdrew from Cornell University in January 1943 and enlisted in the U.S. Army. ◦ When composing interviews, he extensively reworked the material himself, as *The Paris Review* interview was a composite of four interviews extensively reworked by Vonnegut himself. ◦ He preferred to laugh rather than cry in response to frustration and exhaustion, since laughter allowed him to start thinking and striving again sooner. ◦
Vonnegut viewed laughter and tears as equivalent responses to frustration and exhaustion, but favored laughter for its efficiency. ◦ He believed each person has something he can do easily and cannot imagine why everybody else has so much trouble doing it, noting of his own writing, "It just turned out that I could write better than a lot of other people." ◦ He used the recurring writer Kilgore Trout, introduced in *God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater* (1965), as a fictional alter ego throughout his oeuvre. ◦ He saw humanity as a mistake while still advocating decent behavior, reflecting a humanist commitment to honest assessment rather than worship. ◦
Vonnegut was an American writer noted for novels highlighting the horrors and ironies of 20th-century civilization. ◦ He held a master's degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago. ◦ His wartime experience as a survivor of the Dresden bombing directly informed *Slaughterhouse-Five*, which won a National Book Award for fiction. ◦ ◦ He wrote a loosely structured meditation on free will in his later novel *Timequake* (1997). ◦ He also offered lessons in creative writing, attacking the use of semicolons and asserting that all great literature concerns the difficulty of being human. ◦
Vonnegut's novels are wryly satirical and frequently employ postmodern techniques as well as elements of fantasy and science fiction. ◦ He crafted absurdist nonlinear narratives, as seen in *Slaughterhouse-Five*, which uses the Dresden bombing raid as a symbol of the cruelty and destructiveness of war. ◦ He delivered observations with deadpan humor, once describing a 240-millimeter howitzer shell that "would come floating out like the Goodyear blimp" and adding that, had his crew possessed a stepladder, they could have painted "Fuck Hitler" on the shell as it left the gun. ◦ He held that all great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being. ◦ He issued a blunt creative writing rule: "Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college." ◦ His relatives reportedly told him they were glad he was rich but that they simply could not read him. ◦
His work carries an essentially fatalistic worldview that nonetheless embraces modern humanist beliefs. ◦ He condemned the moral blasphemy of bombing civilians in World War II, yet he wanted a military funeral because it would be a way of achieving the unqualified approval of his community, something he felt he could have had if only he had managed to get himself killed in the war. ◦ ◦ He declared that "Evolution can go to hell as far as I am concerned. What a mistake we are," while simultaneously crediting his upbringing with giving him compassionate and forgiving aspects of belief. ◦ ◦ His relatives were glad he was rich but admitted they could not read him, suggesting a gap between commercial success and personal accessibility. ◦
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