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Genuinely Insane

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Kurt Vonnegut

It is beyond dispute that Kurt Vonnegut has influenced me more than my dad.

These days he's getting up there in years--he's 81--and does have a nasty tendency to repeat himself, e.g. in every interview or public statement, he plugs his son Mark Vonnegut's book The Eden Express. On the other hand, I've read the book, probably five or six times, and you should too. The guy just wrote the one book, but it's as good as anything as his dad ever wrote, and probably better. It's called a memoir of schizophrenia, but that explanation really doesn't do the book justice. Read it as a novel if you like, but read it.

But back to Kurt. He has a somewhat scatter-shot, but still wide-ranging and thought-provoking, essay here.

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