Bill Ectric

2 responses to “Dave Eggers on Kurt Vonnegut”

1. 

   tovorinok

   July 5, 2007 at 8:01 am

   Hello

   Great book. I just want to say what a fantastic thing you are doing! Good luck!

   G’night

2. 

   Literary Monthly

   April 14, 2007 at 5:07 pm

   Funny isn’t it, the life of a writer; how we see him, versus how it really was. You read Vonnegut in high school, this terribly famous writer with the wildly appealing imagination. And you assume that’s that.

   But the timeline shows a man post-WWII, who published a fairly ordinary little book in 1952 (I had no idea). Took him seven years to publish again, but this time, an amazingly modern, hip, provocation. But that was 1959, and nobody noticed. Two more hits in the early and mid ‘60’s. Then finally in ’69, seventeen years after Piano, ten years after Titan; finally a major breakthrough.

   Amazing to think of it that way. At thirty years old, Vonnegut was a hip young novelist. At forty-seven, somebody finally noticed. We all did. But for all of us Vonnegut-wannabe’s, this is a dour and sullen craft. Maybe we’ll get famous when we’re 99, look out at our adoring public and say “fuck you.” Make me young again, Mr. Vonnegut; if you can. But it doesn’t work.