Billy Pilgrim's dad died yesterday.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, my favorite author Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday, a few weeks after suffering irreversible head injuries due to a fall in his home. Billy Pilgrim was a character in one of his most popular books, Slaughterhouse-Five.
I don't think I've ever cried over a stranger dying before. Not when any actor has died, not when any artist died, not even when Joey Ramone died. I guess a little of my tough outer skin went with him.
So it goes.
About Me
- Phollower
- Turn ons: The Buffalo Sabres and Euro-Style board games. Turn offs: Going to work
4 comments:
Characters get under your skin. You hold them in your hands and grow as they grow with each turn of the worn page.
Songs, you memorize many times without even being aware of what the lyrics are. That's not the same as a well written and developed character.
How many times have you been sad when a good song is over versus how many times you've been sad over finishing a really great book? I've never had a song do that. I've never been left to think, ponder, or been in a rush to finish a CD. Books on the other hand; that drive to finish something and then been sad about crossing the finish line with the last page, that's happened several times and it's a wonderfully sad feeling that I embrace.
I've seen "so it goes" more times the last couple of days than I did in the book. Can't blame anyone; it pretty much sums everything up neatly. My own favorite line is Bunny Weeks, the gay restauruant owner in "Rosewater" looking around at his own wealthy clientele and saying with distaste, "And look who's winning. Look who's won."
"I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all."
From "The Sirens of Titan"
How true, how true
Everybody: OK, stop with the Vonnegut quotes or I'm gonna start weeping like a little girl again. I can find dozens of great quotes just by flipping through a handful of my paperbacks. There are just that many.
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