Slapstick

Author: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Category: Christmas

KVJ is my most favorite author (my cats are named Kilgore and Trout, and certainly by no accident). Several years ago I read just about everything I could get my hands on by him. I had heard that his greatest work had been the Sirens of Titan so I saved that book for maybe 3 or 4 years - the best for last, so to speak (although it clearly turned out I had missed a few others).

Finally, some time early in 2007 I just couldn't hold out any longer so I read it. And then the unimaginable happened. I killed my hero.

Within weeks of my finishing Sirens KVJ passed away. Who knew I had been keeping him alive all along by starving myself of his greatest work? I was devastated, literally.

But alas, I hadn't quite been as completely read in KVJ as I had thought. Missing from my library was not only Slapstick, but also Welcome to the Monkey House, both of which I received first editions for Christmas from my most wonderful Pink.

Slapstick was one of the most heartfelt books I've read by him, even drawing tears in the introduction. For this particular edition KVJ described more about him personally than I ever knew and elicited such tears of sadness. The INTRODUCTION! The story itself, of course, had the usual expected quirkiness of a Vonnegut story, but knowing the basis for which he wrote it made it more meaningful and less satiric for me, slipping it in just behind Cat's Cradle on my list of Vonnegut favorites.