Vonnegut. 4.11.2007

I'm a child of the sixties. A west coast child. There's no way around that. To me that means there are certain icons and markers, events and experiences that I share as a common background, with those who grew up in that same period. A background that is universal, not just personal. A background that is pervasive, and even today informs how I (and we) look at the world. The assassinations, Vietnam, the Beatles, Stones, and Beach Boys, Esalen, space, hippies, Watergate, civil rights, and women's rights. Along with the music, were the writers and artists -- Warhol, Hockney, Lichtenstein, Peter Max, anonymous poster artists, Brautigan, Heller, Kesey, Plath, Wolfe, Thompson, and rising iconically above them all -- Kurt Vonnegut.

Everyone's understanding of their life is probably both wrong on how unique it is, and wrong on how universal it is. My wife, who grew up in the exact same time and location, would say some of the names on my list were at all influential in her life. At the same time, while I think I'm an extremely special person with unique insights into life based on a unique set of experiences, in the broad sense, not so much. Our generation did see a President killed and men walk on the moon. Those were shared experiences that tint our view of the world, even when our reactions remain uniquely ours.

Vonnegut probably didn't speak to everyone in that time. But it surely felt that way, to this west coast child of the sixties. His voice remains so clear, especially from the early books. Their sparseness. The rhythms of repetition. "So it goes." "And so on." "Hi ho." His repetition of characters in different books, like Trout and Rosewater, creating a meta-novel of sorts, without tying the books tightly together by plot. His voice of hopeful futility that resonated with those who lived through Vietnam, the Kennedy and King assassinations. If the big picture looks hopeless, find joy and contentment in the little things -- his wit and satire among them.

I'm not any kind of critic or book reviewer, and these comments are not intended to try and explain what Vonnegut was doing, and whether he succeeded or not, or whether he was a good writer and why. I really just want to say that he has died, "God forbid," and a voice intimately tied to my life, a major ingredient in the primordial soup of the sixties, is now frozen in time. It's a bittersweet moment, like reaching the end of one of his novels, only to find out that there aren't any more to be read. And even though we seem to be living through a time when all the unfinished business of the sixties is getting played out again, I'm sure the voice of this time will have a harder edge, and a shriller tone, and less inclination to find joy in the small things. God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut.