Kurt Vonnegut could twist the world like M.C. Esher on acid.
His controversial humor and style shattered my twelve year-old world of He-Man and arcade games, only to replace it with dick jokes and a new world of literature that liberated my mind and influenced my own writing.
One day in the spring of 1995 I attended a physics demonstration at my middle school that would change how I viewed literature. What does physics have to do with literature? Well, the physics provoked but the instructor well...* The instructor, a physics professor and father of one of my friends, was no Professor Moriarty in tweed. Emaciated by his vegetarian diet he had the unkempt mop of Russell Brand and a scruff shadow that made five o’clock wet its knickers. …show more content…
I remember lying in a hammock outside and reading the Cover: Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. One day my mother noticed me reading. Realizing it as a singular an event, she cautiously asked “What’cha got there.” Without looking up I responded “Cat’s Cradle.” Not recognizing the title she asked to see the book and began flipping from page to page, reading small excerpts. Now, if you have ever been privy to the works of Mr. Vonnegut then you might understand the looks of dread and panic that flashed across her face. The explicit contents of Vonnegut’s collected works include everything from racism to sex and an in-depth description of male and female anatomy. Luckily, Cat’s Cradle is one of the milder ones. Unbeknownst to my mother, Vonnegut had done his damage. The freedom with which he wrote, the bravado and depravity, which filled the pages from preface to missing flyleaf, every word thus read had bleed into me. Vonnegut was warped, he had warped me and the whole world had gone pear …show more content…
Some of you will heed my advice and some of you won’t, thinking I’m trying to be profoundly comical… I’m not. Some of you will read it and then try and get your money back. Some of you, I’d like to say the more intelligible, but I wont because its not true, rather the opposite, will read the book and enjoy it until you sentence it to death in the attic or under a wobbly table leg.
His controversial humor and style shattered my twelve year-old world of He-Man and arcade games, only to replace it with dick jokes and a new world of literature that liberated my mind and influenced my own writing.
One day in the spring of 1995 I attended a physics demonstration at my middle school that would change how I viewed literature. What does physics have to do with literature? Well, the physics provoked but the instructor well...* The instructor, a physics professor and father of one of my friends, was no Professor Moriarty in tweed. Emaciated by his vegetarian diet he had the unkempt mop of Russell Brand and a scruff shadow that made five o’clock wet its knickers. …show more content…
I remember lying in a hammock outside and reading the Cover: Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. One day my mother noticed me reading. Realizing it as a singular an event, she cautiously asked “What’cha got there.” Without looking up I responded “Cat’s Cradle.” Not recognizing the title she asked to see the book and began flipping from page to page, reading small excerpts. Now, if you have ever been privy to the works of Mr. Vonnegut then you might understand the looks of dread and panic that flashed across her face. The explicit contents of Vonnegut’s collected works include everything from racism to sex and an in-depth description of male and female anatomy. Luckily, Cat’s Cradle is one of the milder ones. Unbeknownst to my mother, Vonnegut had done his damage. The freedom with which he wrote, the bravado and depravity, which filled the pages from preface to missing flyleaf, every word thus read had bleed into me. Vonnegut was warped, he had warped me and the whole world had gone pear …show more content…
Some of you will heed my advice and some of you won’t, thinking I’m trying to be profoundly comical… I’m not. Some of you will read it and then try and get your money back. Some of you, I’d like to say the more intelligible, but I wont because its not true, rather the opposite, will read the book and enjoy it until you sentence it to death in the attic or under a wobbly table leg.