I used to be funny

“and perhaps I’m not anymore.”

Those words from  Mr. Vonnegut in A Man Without a Country. I don’t think anyone can deny that he was indeed once funny, but I also think that he continued to be funny up to his death only a few days ago.

Kurt Vonnegut died after sustaining brain damage in a fall in New York. He was a great author, possibly his most famous novel was Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut’s mother committed suicide on mother’s day 1944 after her hopes of becoming a magazine writer were gradually dashed. Kurt once said that she ‘lacked the vulgarity needed’ but that he was ‘loaded with it’. Such a comment proving that he wasn’t just an author but a comic aswell.

Much of his work was anti-war stemming from his campaign in World War II in which he was captured that The Battle of the Bulge. He spent the rest of the war in a slaughterhouse in Dresden, his experiences detailed in Slaughterhouse Five. After the bombing raid on the city Vonnegut and his fellow prisoners were forced to clear the corpses from the rubble, an experience also depicted in Slaughterhouse.

Mr. Vonnegut attempted suicide in the mid-eighties, a period in which his novels contained distinctly less humour. He also joked that he wanted to sue the cigarette company because the plan he was on had promised to kill him and hadn’t.

Kurt Vonnegut will be greatly missed by many people, R.I.P Kurt, your work will not be forgotten for a long time.

MTFBWY