- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse -Five
Legendary writer Kurt Vonnegut has died at 84 from brain injuries suffering in a fall outside his apartment a few weeks ago. So passes the literary great who brought us Slaughterhouse Five. He'll be having a drink up there with Joseph Heller and George Orwell as we speak.
Slaughterhouse-Five, along with Orwell's 1984 and Heller's Catch-22 are the Holy Trinity of fiction for me. If you haven't read Slaughterhouse-Five, you must. This interesting Wikipedia article will give you a taste of what it's about.
It's enough to say that Vonnegut's witnessing of the ferocious bombing of Dresden during the WWII affected him profoundly and was the basis of the novel, in the same way that Orwell's fighting in the Spanish civil war influenced most of what he wrote and Heller's wartime experiences inspired Catch-22. Vonnegut's short stories are said to be very good, I'll be searching them out at Arty Bees book store which usually has a good selection of Vonnegut.
Slaughterhouse-Five, along with Orwell's 1984 and Heller's Catch-22 are the Holy Trinity of fiction for me. If you haven't read Slaughterhouse-Five, you must. This interesting Wikipedia article will give you a taste of what it's about.
It's enough to say that Vonnegut's witnessing of the ferocious bombing of Dresden during the WWII affected him profoundly and was the basis of the novel, in the same way that Orwell's fighting in the Spanish civil war influenced most of what he wrote and Heller's wartime experiences inspired Catch-22. Vonnegut's short stories are said to be very good, I'll be searching them out at Arty Bees book store which usually has a good selection of Vonnegut.
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