Kurt Vonnegut is an amazing writer. Each of his books manage to buck the traditional style of writing, while at the same time offering real content and flow. I love the way that each of his books neglect timelines linear flow. Instead they are more like blurbs of events and ideas, occasionally hinting at a general theme.
I also like Mr. Vonnegut because he is able to describe things so well. A lot of the time I can relate a good idea vocally to a group of people, but on paper (as you can see) I have a lot of trouble. Usually I manage to get the idea through, but never in the exact way that I'm aiming for. Kurt Vonnegut achieves this. He can take an idea and wholly understand it and express it to his readers. Here's an example...
In A Streetcar Named Desire, Blanche Dubois said as she was taken away to a madhouse, after she was raped by her sister's husband, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
Those speeches, those situations, those people, became emotional and ethical landmarks for me in my early manhood, and remain such in the summer of 1996. That is because I was immobilized in a congregation of rapt fellow human beings in a theater when I first saw and heard them.
They would have made no more impression on me that Monday Night Football, had I been alone eating nachos and gazing into the face of a cathode-ray tube
How good is that? The final paragraph (for me anyways) is where the real punch lies. It's so quick and simple, but it hits the marker with deft precision. Like a needle shearing the skin. You can just picture some average guy with nachos spilled down his shirt, pants half unzipped in a dull room, the only light being the blue glow of the TV. Sitting there, watching a streetcar named desire with his blank stare. Compare that to the man clutching the side of his seat as the police haul Blanche out of her sisters house - ready to leap up and smack Stellas husband for being such an asshole.
Anyways, you get the point. He just has such a good way of getting his point across. Never in a preachy way either, more subtlely than anything else. I just wanted to write this article as a means of paying respect. A lot of people might criticize; saying that I'm some kitsch loving, chique-reading, RollingStone = culture, kinda person. Well I don't think so, I just happen to like a lot of the authors who are adopted by 'modern chique' magazines. So be it. I just like Kurt Vonnegut and wanted to reccomend his books to people. He has inspired me to trya and express (in the poor manner that I do) my thoughts through writing. Maybe someone reading this article will check him out and find that he does the same for them...