Farewell, Mr. Vonnegut

One of my fondest memories of being a first year teacher last year was when one of my seniors in study hall told he found a book on another teachers shelf called Breakfast of Champions. He read it in a few days and then told me he didn't understand it. Being just a little familiar with the works of Vonnegut I wanted to read it too. Two days later I was done with it to. We spent the next two weeks talking about it and what it meant to each of us. I've spent the past year searching Asian bookstores for more Vonnegut, after giving Cat's Cradle to a Chinese English teacher. I still base a good chunk of my theology on what I remember an old roommate sharing with me after reading a Vonnegut book. That was after I encouraged him to read Slaughterhouse Five and he began reading other books on his own.

And now the good old man is dead. I'll leave it, again, to MetaFilter to someone else to sum up my own thoughts:

Kurt Vonnegut *was* an idiot.

You'd have to be to tell the truth. Sometimes there exists a person who is unafraid to look life if in the eye and accept it for what it is. Has this world ever rewarded these people with anything but sadness and a sense of isolation?

It's the sweet little lies about this world and our lives in it that make living bearable for so many of us, you'd have to be an idiot to give up that comfort, even if you never spoke about it to another soul. You'd have to be an even bigger idiot to open your mouth and speak the truth, or in his case sing it out for all to hear, when everything history has ever taught us is that people will only despise you for it.

He wasn't a particularly happy man, his vision didn't seem to bring him comfort, he struggled with suicide his whole life, and perhaps he could have dulled that pain with some comforting illusions. But he was an idiot, and chose the harder path, and made the world an indelibly better place because he lived here, and chose to live in his manner.

... and from his own imagination, the Book of Bokonon:

The Last Rites of the Bokononism [ 99 ]
(Each line is said once by the person giving the rites and then repeated by the dying person.)

God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.
I will go to heaven now.
I can hardly wait...
To find out for certain what my wampeter was...
And who was in my karass...
And all the good things our karass did for you.
Amen.

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