So it goes

I was just reading Kurt Vonnegut's obituary in the Times, when this part struck me:

He also studied for a master's degree in anthropology at the University of Chicago, writing a thesis, "The Fluctuations Between Good and Evil in Simple Tales," that was rejected unanimously by the faculty.

Whoa. That's seriously harsh.

I used to read Kurt Vonnegut in high school -- for some reason, I associate Slaughterhouse-five with Mr. Knowles' Calculus class. I'm actually not sure why, but it may have to do with a friend who was always talking about Kilgore Trout in that class, and who turned me on to Vonnegut. Looking at my bookshelf, I'm reminded that one of my favorite Vonnegut books was a collection of short stories, Welcome to the Monkey House and, in particular, I remember the final story, which we may have read in 9th grade English class, I don't know: "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow." It's set in the future, when the world is so overpopulated that Iowa is on the "outskirts of Chicago" and a strange concoction of "mud and dandelions" has given the entire population immortality, such that everyone resents everyone else and their maniacal drive to live forever.

When I lived in New York, I went to the Barnes and Noble on Union Square one night to see Kurt Vonnegut give a reading. The place was packed -- I remember I was squashed against a bookshelf of SAT guides, and could just barely see the author's wild tuft of hair. But it was so exciting to see Kurt Vonnegut, this entity who's books I'd devoured in high school, and who represented an intangible category of great American writers to me. Yet there he was on the second story of a bookstore in New York, up against the windows. It was as if I couldn't believe he existed as a human being, operating independently of his novels. Where had he come from? What made him decide to do that cameo in "Back to School"?

I wonder if authors like Vonnegut realize the kind of impact they have on their readers -- how when we read their books, they become associated with some particular moment in time, or some particular part of our lives, that they're both unreal to us and yet so representative of those exact moments and places in our own lives. And how amazing, then, it is to see them in person, cracking jokes and reading their poetry and talking about Kilgore Trout.

I feel bad that Vonnegut's thesis was roundly rejected by the faculty. If any of those snooty professors are alive today, I'll bet they're kicking themselves.