Re: Kurt Vonnegut has died
Disagree most heartily. Journey to the End of the Night is easy to love. It's like nothing that came before it and nothing I've read that came after it. Celine is a tremendously gifted writer, and Journey is far better than the average book or even the average classic. It is a masterpiece.
Vonnegut is shot through wtih Celine's spirit, and it did him good. He wrote with high praise the forwards of some of his post-war books, clearly esteemingly him and his work highly, and probably his signature phrase might as well have been lifted from Journey directly. Celine is no afterthought or small note in relation to Vonnegut, and certainly not in terms of talent. If anything, Celine made Vonnegut possible, but not necessarily as an improvement.
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