C.E.’s Reviews > And So it Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life > Status Update

High School is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of"

I've used this quote in my writings many times before--most notably to the history of Grand Haven High School I wrote in 1993, originally as part of an alumni directory. Today it appears on the high school web site.

http://ghhs.ghaps.org/content/our-school

"If he had his choice, he would be about twelve again, immersed in hobbies and leaving the nasty running of the world to grown-ups."

This sounds so much like me in many ways--it makes me wonder if the fact that I started reading Vonnegut in high school, just as I was bridging from child to adult influenced my way of looking at the world and, maybe, my life choices.

A storng quote is "Let others bring order to chaos. I will bring chaos to order. If all writers would do that, then perhaps everyone will understand that there is no order in the world around us, that we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead." I think this really captures Vonnegut's worldview and, as a guy who has been reading him since I was 15, explains how he shaped mine as well.

Interesting looks at the artist's life.

Loved the story about Vonnegut playing "Funeral March"--nice example of humor and tells us something about the man.

Fascinating (and harrowing) description of Vonnegut's experiences in a POW camp in Dresden, especially the stuff about bodies dead in basements because fire tornados sucked all the oxygen out of the atmosphere.