Damn, one of my favorite writers, Kurt Vonnegut, has died.
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Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like "Slaughterhouse-Five," "Cat's Cradle" and "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died Wednesday night in Manhattan. He was 84 and had homes in Manhattan and in Sagaponack on Long Island. Mr. Vonnegut had suffered brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago.
In 1944 he was shipped to Europe with the 106th Infantry Division and shortly saw combat in the Battle of the Bulge. With his unit nearly destroyed, he wandered behind enemy lines for several days until he was captured and sent to a prisoner of war camp near Dresden, the architectural jewel of Germany. Assigned by his captors to make vitamin supplements, he was working with other prisoners in an underground meat locker when British and American war planes started carpet bombing the city, creating a firestorm above him. The work detail saved his life. Afterward, he and his fellow prisoners were assigned to remove the dead.
[/p][a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut"]Wikipedia Bio[/a][/p]
[/p]To Mr. Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness. The title character in his 1965 novel, "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," summed up his philosophy:[/p] "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — 'God damn it, you've got to be kind.' "[/p][a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/books/11cnd-vonnegut.html?ex=1333944000&en=fa0903aa5313fc8b&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss"]NY Times Story[/a]
