Despite repeated efforts to read and enjoy his novels, I was never able to consider myself a fan. I still recognize the loss to the literary world. RIP.
Interesting.
How old were you when you tried to read him and how long ago was that?
I read everything he wrote beginning in my high school daze, when he was introduced to us through Slaughterhouse Five in a philosophy/religion class guided by a Jesuit priest/scholar. We even did the multimedia thing. Can you imagine the unbridled joy displayed by a bunch of sophmores in an all boy Jesuit school watching, in class, an unedited Valerie Perrine effortlessly play the role of Montana Wildhack!!!! It is a day I'll always look back upon with great, incredible fondness. Her memorable gratuitous boob scene wasn't exceeded on the screen until Melanie Griffith, playing Tess McGill in Working Girl, vacuumed the apartment in nothing but panties!!
But I digress, in a semester that focused on humanism and existentialism, Vonnegut played on the stage before us right along side luminaries such as Sartre, Camus and Ayn Rand. It was the sort of introduction to remarkable ideas and ways of thinking that you don't fully appreciate until sometime later.
I'd say, at the time, that Vonnegut resonated for me much better than those three, I suppose because he was more contemporary but also because his view was less purposeless and more hopeful than the others. I found, and still find, Sartre and Camus insufferably self-possessed. So I gravitated to Vonnegut's work and read everything I could find from him. I even wrote to Vonnegut ~1980 thanking him for his work and received what I remember as a generous, handwritten response.
But not long ago, I leafed through one of his books and had a similar reaction as yours. Work that I once enjoyed passionately no longer really struck a chord with me. His words, obviously, haven't changed since he put them down. So I have to wonder, why don't I embrace his brand of antiauthoritarianism as I once did?
And then you figure out that something inside you has disappeared. Maybe his work was really just immature and only relevant to the periadolescent rebel? On the other hand, in his recent years, he's said very little, particularly about the debacle in Mesopotamia that one can disagree with.
So I find your reaction very interesting.
