A Bowl of Stupid

The literary world suffered a major loss yesterday. Kurt Vonnegut, author of classics like Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, and Cat’s Cradle, died at the age of 84. While I can in no way pretend to be an authority of his works, I can say that his writing was equal parts brilliant and fascinating. He lived a pretty intense life – he fought at the Battle of the Bulge, and was captured by the Germans and was a P.O.W. for almost 18 months, during which he witnessed the bombing of Dresden. Upon his return, he was awarded the Purple Heart for what he referred to as a “ludicrously negligible wound”. All of this commenced only months after his mother committed suicide. His novels were darkly foreboding, clever, and hilariously funny all at once. I figured I’d post this as a small testimony to his life. Here are his rules for writing a short story (this and other facts obtained from Wikipedia):

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Vonnegut was also a brutal critic of the Bush administration, quoted as saying: “By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas in December.”

Rest in Peace., Mr. Vonnegut.

How nice–to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.

PS – Credit to Wikipedia for much of the information in this post.

PPS – If this post doesn’t work correctly, I’m flying to Costa Rica to meet Matt. Only one of us will return.