Discuss “Vonnegut dies at age 84; His sharp American commentary lives on”

As I stare at the copy of Bluebeard sitting on my desk, I can’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of sadness. Kurt Vonnegut was a voice for generations of the disaffected — a voice that spoke and wrote so eloquently and with such passion that nothing else in the world could match it.

Listen: Kurt Vonnegut was in an underground bunker in the city of Dresden, Germany, in the 1940s, when the Allied forces firebombed it. The city was destroyed and everyone was killed, in what most regard as a pretty dumb move on the Allies’ part. The city had no military operations except for the POW camp. Bombing Dresden benefited only one person, Vonnegut said. “I am that person. I wrote Slaughterhouse-Five.... One way or another, I got two or three...