Kurt Vonnegut is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. If you do not know this name please do your research and consider reading one of his works. Throughout my years in high school, I wasn’t a big fan of the literature that my teachers would share. Even the ones I enjoyed, I felt some form of inauthenticity. That as a fan of literature I had to LOVE specific works. Luckily, my eleventh-grade professor introduced my class and me to Slaughterhouse-Five, a book none of the other classes were reading in order to prepare for the rugged and arguably fascistic standards of the Advanced Placement exam. The writer was the cryptic Kurt Vonnegut.
I was so intrigued by this novel from the get-go. In it, Vonnegut dealt with subject matter so dark. He reflected on his time as a prisoner of war during World War II, witnessing the destruction of Dresden, and the concept of free-will with a nonchalance. He dealt with his pain with a ludicrous storyline with prevalent black humor. The story was so dark, yet he found humor in it. Instead of drowning the reader with pretentious prose describing a turtle, he kept things blunt and to the point.
In this novel was the recurring phrase, “So it goes,” whenever something challenging or tragic occurred. This quote has become a motto for me. Whenever I’m feeling doomed and hopeless, I always will find a way to crack a laugh and say, “So it goes." Vonnegut has influenced me to develop a means of dealing with the pains of everyday life. Like who gives a crap if you had a bad day? So it goes…
With these articles, I try to write in vain of someone as witty as Vonnegut, but I often fail. Hopefully, one day I can create art as well as his. He wrote what he wanted and didn’t give much of a shit what people thought. Behind that little weird Albert Einstein look-a-like was one real badass writer. His plots appeared wild on paper, but often had profound undertones. His plot lines were often out of this world, and I honestly have no idea how his stories didn’t fall apart as he was writing them. He was not one who’d write the typical war novel – his had twists of time jumps, aliens, and no overtly masculine heroic characters. In his works, he also preached for the well-being of humanity and preached that we should all just try to be decent to each other, goddammit. Everything he did and wrote was purely unconventional.
I’m not one to write literature analyses for fun, but I honestly wanted to give a big shout out to Vonnegut. Vonnegut sadly passed like many greats back in 2007. But his wit and word lives on. Who’d know if I’d even be writing for the Odyssey now without his influence on my writing style and witty view of everyday life? Not to sound like a typical New Paltz Kid – I might even get a, "So it goes," tattoo (sorry mom) because of how much I value that quote. If you’re having a bad day just say to yourself, “So it goes." It will all be ok…….
