KV

"When my mother went off her rocker late at night, the hatred and contempt she sprayed on my father, as gentle and innocent a man as ever lived, was without limit and pure, untainted by ideas or information." Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Kurt Vonnegut has died. Obituaries are cropping up across the Internet and in newspapers across the country, possibly around the world, as I type this. Vonnegut was one of the most influential writers of the mid-20th century. As a chance survivor of the fire-bombing of Dresden near the end of World War II, his writings touched a chord with the Vietnam War generation. Evidently his works have been garnering attention once again as Americans find themselves embroiled in an unpopular war overseas. Clearly the young people who read Vonnegut so avidly have grown up to assign the reading of his writings to a new generation of activists. In fact, one of last summer's pool attendants was deeply immersed in Vonnegut's works, drowning children left to their own devices.

Don't get me wrong: I'm as avid a fan of Vonnegut's writings as many of my generation. Upon spotting the announcement of his passing, I hastened to read what obituaries I could find. The article that most caught my attention, however, was a two-year-old editorial by the author's son, Mark Vonnegut, a pediatrician in Massachusetts. The younger Vonnegut presents himself as a thinking individual separate from his father, even has he defends his father from slander. More important, he makes an excellent point about today's so-called journalists: "I hope I'm wrong, but if the people actually in charge of this war can't listen and think better than the people beating up my dad, it's not good news for military families and no amount of flag waving will make it so." I find it reassuring that the grandson of a woman diagnosed as mentally unstable and so thoroughly stigmatized by her own son (see quote above) is able to demonstrate such clear and humane thinking, genetics notwithstanding. It's a good argument for nurture despite nature, I think, and hopeful for those of us neither so afflicted nor so blessed.