There is no God, but God Bless You, Kurt Vonnegut

Armistice Day, now Veterans Day, this year coincides with the one hundredth birthday of the late Mr. Kurt Vonnegut. He preferred the former designation which signified the end of the war that should have ended all wars, World War I in 1918. Now, fifteen years after his death (so it goes), reflections on his life and career have become even more apt.

In his library, he has altered, uprooted, and exploded the English language much to the benefit of millions of readers. From Player Piano to Cat’s Cradle to Breakfast of Champions to Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut pushed through proasic forms and found poetry in the spectacular. In moments of inanity, dullness, and the mundane found in the human condition, he lit a match and set fire to any notion of boredom in reading.

His stories convey the absurdity of mysticism and collectivism primarily. By fusing both word and image in works like Five, Vonnegut mastered the way to show his characters and their journeys.

With sometimes meandering plots and extremely short chapters, his oeuvre consists of snapshots of ugliness and large canvases of beauty. Even in smaller works, He denounces egalitarianism in his short story, “Harrison Bergeron.”

The total sum of this man’s work can be said in his phrase: “so it goes” (as mentioned above). This is a quiet reminder that all of humanity who have lived must die one day. Fear not, however. Vonnegut filled his books with enough aphorisms and witticisms to tell the world salvation is in the mind.

It is thought that sustained Vonnegut as a prisoner of war in World War II during the bombing of Dresden, Germany. To keep his sanity, he was compelled to keep in mind the pleasantness somewhere, anywhere. Whether someone was listening to Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique or driving a Lincoln K Convertible Roadster, he knew that he would persevere amongst the carnage.

Though he never spoke of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) verbatim, his stories about that passage in his life always centered on how hellish war and other atrocities actually are. As he picked up a pen to aid his psychic scars, he fought the good fight as a champion of free speech and individual rights.

With books often banned from school shelves, Vonnegut pressed on with the power of his own intellectual prowess. By just typing characters down and doodling images on a page, he sparked a revolution in the literary world that authors still find beneficial.

Vonnegut’s matter-of-a-factness and cool demeanor even when faced with the horror of being ordered to stack or even blaze corpses back in Dresden, fueled his imagination and kept his thoughts intact.

Fortunately, Vonnegut didn’t become strung out on drugs or develop alcoholism. Although he did have bouts of depression and almost destroyed himself with booze and pills, he marched on with the light of the mind guiding his path. He lived to the age of eighty-four and motivated scores of young writers to face and engage with their own thoughts and the world out there.

To say he was brilliant would not give him enough credit. The idealism behind his works is to liberate oneself from the fetters of conformity and injustice. He made challenging, curious, and sometimes whimsical art, but it was his. He showed that it is possible to be damaged but unbroken.

To all of his supporters over the decades, Vonnegut has been a beacon amongst a wasteland. His soulfulness is rooted in his Midwest upbringing. Though his early years saw rockiness with his mother’s suicide, Vonnegut never let that light dim throughout his life. Upon fighting for his own freedom in Europe, he found he could count on himself for his own safety and well-being.

On this Veterans Day, or arms stoppage, let us celebrate Kurt Vonnegut, a figurehead of the First Amendment and friend to all who wish to think.