karen meisner (_stranger_here) wrote,
2007-04-12 08:00:00

vonnegut

When college applications asked for essays on an influential person in my life, I wrote about Kurt Vonnegut. Some years later, I went to see him speak at a local university. The place was buzzing with excitement, and then when he walked into the room, everyone fell silent and the crowd parted to let him pass. He was in his seventies by then and he walked slowly, with a rueful expression on his face, as if resigned to the fact that young people everywhere regarded him as like unto a god and he would just have to put up with it.

It's not only that the writing was so good and funny and heartbreaking, or that the stories caught the imagination. His stuff framed a crazy world from a sane perspective, looking at humanity in all its miserable failings and still finding value in love and kindness. He wrote about ugly things beautifully. He made me think and he made me care and he showed me what a writer can do and I'll always be grateful.



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