So It Goes

A lot of bloggers, newspapers and magazines are saying a lot of things about Kurt Vonnegut, so here are some links.

Graeme at Hocemo Li Na Kafu?

Screenwriter James Moran.

Comedian Bill Arnett.

Screenwriter Jane Espenson.

Jane quotes Vonnegut’s 8 point guide to writing fiction. Here it is:

1.Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages. -- Kurt Vonnegut

The Independent republish a famous interview from The Paris Review where he discusses his experiences in the Second World War.

INTERVIEWER You are a veteran of the Second World War?

KURT VONNEGUT, JR. Yes. I want a military funeral when I die - the bugler, the flag on the casket, the ceremonial firing squad, the hallowed ground.

INTERVIEWER Why?

VONNEGUT It will be a way of achieving what I've always wanted more than anything - something I could have had, if only I'd managed to get myself killed in the war.

INTERVIEWER Which is - ?

VONNEGUT The unqualified approval of my community.

Obituary in Time.

Writers discuss his influence in the International Herald Tribune.

Tasha Robinson talks about a doomed interview with Vonnegut in the AV Club.

A feature which links to a PDF of an article written in 1979 by author John Irving on Vonnegut and his critics.

Adam Gartenberg posts Vonnegut's reflections on his time spent as an editor for The Cornell Daily Sun.

10 Zen Monkeys on when Kurt Vonnegut met Sammy Davis Jnr.

An interview with Library Journal from April 1973.

MTV News looks at film adaptations of Vonnegut’s books.

I’ll stop there as I could probably go on all day linking to the numerous things people have been writing about him.