Kurt Vonnegut has died

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found this on YouTube. Its a pretty amazing documentry/interview with Kurt Vonnegut. It also has him reading from his work and re-anactments from his various works as well. Its pretty amazing stuff. Very enjoyable. Looks like it was done in the late 70s/early 80s

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6 (cats cradle)

Part 7

Part 8

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I have never seen you before today, but you are rapidly becoming one of my favorite posters.

[Hobbs.]

Blarg, I second the praise of Celine. Journey to the end of the night is one of my favorite books and actually, come to think of it, one I need to reread.

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Yeh, Cormac McCarthy can definitely be put in the same category as Kurt. Stephen King? Perhaps you're leveling.

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Stephen King is just as good as McCarthy and Vonnegut, in a much different way. All three of them will be among the few modern American writers whose works will still be read and enjoyed 100-150 years from now, and it's a crying shame that all three of them should be Nobel Laureates in Literature, and none of them are.

--Scott

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Wow. Just wow.

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I think a "holy sh*t" is appropriate here.

[ApeAttack]

Meh, I was much more into Player Piano, Cat's Cradle, Galapagos and Sirens of Titan... but a lot of people liked Timequake.

[Hobbs.]

btw, I remember reading somewhere that Celine is one of the handful of writers Bukowski ever openly admired.

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GTL,
I agree that Cormac is in a differnet league. To me he towers over American literature. He can't be touched.
On a different note, I happened to see the eulogy given to Kurt by Britt Hume of Fox News. After giving him props and highlighting his leftist leanings, he concluded by saying he died "such an unhappy man". FUUUCKKKK YYOOOUUUUUU MURDOCH(K)!

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Well said. That's why Fox News hired him, most likely.

If you want a kinder word on your deathbed from Fox, die Republican.

[Triumph36]

of course he died unhappy, he was a [censored] writer - the only writers who die happy are those who die of a heroin overdose.

still doesn't need to be said.

also lol at Stephen King being mentioned as a giant of American literature - maybe if he hadn't cranked out 4 books a year and decided to forgo editors.

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Personally I think Cormac McCarthy is in a different league and head and shoulders above stephen king and Vonnegut. There is an argument for McCarthy being the best american writer ever. It would be impossible to make that argument for King or Vonnegut.

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I've never read any McCarthy, and this latest post-Apocalyptic one doesn't interest me. Any recommends? Didn't he write some ultra-violent book set in Mexico?

King in many ways resembles the Rolling Stones. Limited, but very well aware of those limitations, for the most part. They've both put out so much for so long (a good deal of it crap, esp. in the last 10-15 years), plus their names have so much baggage, it's hard to sometimes remember how really good they were & can be.

The last three Dark Tower books were muddled at best, and the 2nd is nearly unreadable. King himself has said the whole series needs a revision.But both the 1st and esp. the 4th books are fantastic, even as standalones.

If King were to release Different Seasons & the first four Bachman books today (which foresaw reality shows, planes into buildings, and eminent domain backlash, among other things), he'd be a strong Pulitzer/PEN/NBA contender.

Many of his early short stories ARE highly derivative, but some others rank among the very best of the genre; Poe, Lovecraft, Bloch, Matheson, Hemingway.

And he's written about the process of writing (both fictional & non-fictional), and men's relationships with their wives & children about as well as anyone I can think of.

He certainly will be read & discussed 100 years from now, although his more recent stuff is overrated, kinda like Steely Dan getting a Grammy for Two Against Nature instead of Aja.

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Danse Macabre was fantastic and unlike anything else at the time. Night Shift was terrific. Salem's Lot was not without flaws, but tremendously good of its kind. He also hit a lot of lows, some of which he's most popular today.

The problem in his consideration is that he is not really an idea man, and his work is extremely uneven. Early in his career, he admitted that the longer his work was, the more he got paid. This was before The Stand. The Stand was as slow and stuffed with cliche as anything a high schooler could ever have dreamed or written. And he's still adored for it to this day.

King has screwed up too badly, too many times, and been too lauded for it to ever have his career as a whole be looked on as worthy of a significant prize like the Pulitzer or god forbid a Nobel, no matter what he writes today. He both tanked terribly and then developed nicely as a writer. His career has an arc, which is satisfying and redeeming. But his past awfulness will always serve as an undertow pulling down whatever he writes now, at least in terms of posterity. It's possible to like something he writes now, but if you look at his work as a whole, painful wincing is extremely appropriate.

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Blarg,

You write well.

I mean, for a Nazi-lover.

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LOL, I knew it was only a matter of time.

Still, it's a good idea not to write Celine off. Yeah, he screwed up. But if he was good enough for Vonnegut, think about it. Mother Night and much of Vonnegut's whole take on life might never have happened or crystallized the way it did without Celine.

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of course he died unhappy, he was a [censored] writer - the only writers who die happy are those who die of a heroin overdose.

still doesn't need to be said.

also lol at Stephen King being mentioned as a giant of American literature - maybe if he hadn't cranked out 4 books a year and decided to forgo editors.

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A lot of them undergo the disaster of becoming happy, too, and suddenly have nothing more to write about. Or else they find out they like living well better than writing, and sell out and just push out one fat stinking turd after another.