(somber music) -
John
50 years ago, in 1969, a friend of mine It was about an experience from the time he lived It helped shape modern and changed his life in (plane engines roaring) That was his masterpiece, not just because it was because he's sharing You don't have to be a And it's not just war it's a traumatic experience and I think readers get to try to process. I understand how hard but as a boy, I But he was going and trying to get things right. (typewriter keys click) -
John
The book made my but it also brought him It was overwhelming and he and I was with him lots of His intuitive responses -
John
His new found first marriage, one that had Well he left my mother, She ended up being fine being this perfect He actually gave and just sort of went -
John
My friend's the title of his book "Slaughterhouse-Five, -
Narrator
The Children's Slaughterhouse-Five at 50 through the generous Janie and Mickey and the Franklin College I'm John Krull, during Kurt Vonnegut and Several times a year, in midtown Manhattan and During one of our at an Italian place on 2nd somehow turned to his legacy. He was worried I did what a friend does, "People would "No," Kurt said. You're lucky if you have in which you live, you can't and you're lucky if "Come on," I said. "Slaughterhouse-Five" alone is a part of human life.
Kurt would have none of it. He shook his head, not would keep his name alive. -
Mark
I went from being who needed a lot of promotion to book stores and order -
John
"Slaughterhouse-Five" Before the book's publication Kurt was a well He had published a handful of none sold many copies. He started writing as soon And he was writing when at University of for the Chicago News Bureau. When he was at General and wrote at night. He got up early and He wrote on the weekends and all these things -
John
To make ends meet Kurt took on other work. He did public relations, he even tried selling cars, He was incredibly bad. He was off scale bad, I rode demonstration rides and he felt compelled to could corner with and people weren't used And he also insisted on and one thing I "Dad, you should (laughs) 1968 and that was and Mark said so, "I "who was turned down for "at Cape Cod Community College." (upbeat music) -
John
"Slaughterhouse-Five" It did what Kurt's It sold. It rose to number four on the New York Times Best Seller list. Every book he wrote following "Slaughterhouse-Five" as were several of You are sort of the hero. Well I'm-- is that (Kurt drowns out I'm tough now you know, and so that may wreck that.
-
John
Kurt started did a cameo in a movie, I bought two suits of including a new tuxedo. -
John
He commanded on the lecture circuit. He never had to All of a sudden, we had to Europe, we had all these was where did these (somber music) was a product of torment. Kurt grew up in Indianapolis. The youngest child of whose fortunes fell with the He attended Shortridge an editor of the He was good at writing, to pursue a career He struggled in college in the Army as World War II His mother died, Kurt on Mother's Day 1944, not long Almost immediately, the Germans a Prisoner of War.
He had a rough life are often, there's a kind of to cover with a pearl. He took me into a science We talked a lot on that trip. I honestly think and driving a car, and sometimes he was of things to say, so. (laughs) He talked about the war.
He downplayed what He was put in charge of the and he said something "You can't treat And they damn near beat him We were just kids they sent the best they the best tanks, and so I was ragged, I had seen a lot of people die and I had to have the and I was just a kid and when it was all over, there as far as the eye -
John
He and the other They were still there the city over As many as 135,000 The POWs were forced to to mass graves and During the carnage, Kurt and in a meat locker, There was no way without a scar for life. If you're dealing with the way they get through it to another vet, who and that is the therapy, so was his therapy for his, for -
John
Kurt struggled to from the moment he had it. He wrote in a letter to his (typewriter keys clicking) Further down in the Then he tried to deal with that wouldn't be published "Wailing Shall Be Slaughterhouse that he had been and I do think he was very in World War II. His writing was in many ways about what he had been through, and I think a lot of good who are PTSD, bipolar upset by what and by trying to tell they stay alive. I think without writing he would have been just -
John
Kurt circled writing for more than 20 years. The breakthrough came when Bernardo O'Hare and Kurt wanted to try to remember things that would to go about writing it. Mary O'Hare, Bernard's and she didn't say anything, pots and pans and and finally Kurt said, "What's She said, "I'm mad cause "and it's gonna be one of those "a movie with John Wayne "but you guys weren't like that. "You were children." And so, he subtitled the book, the novel, The -
John
That exchange helped Kurt with Unlike his earlier treatments "Slaughterhouse-Five" Its tragedies and with a mournful refrain. (typewriter keys clicking) So it goes It's a little and I think he did and if he had himself it would have been a role -
John
Another breakthrough with humor, with of sadness, even tragedy. Laughter and sobbing are And what happens if you even though it's fiction, and it'll get you And in real life as you will be solved immediately in we're gonna fight and so you're stuck with all what else and the way you air through your lungs and you can do this but laughter is He wrote that book with of identity and yet with a detached humor, which of human life. War novels up to that point They were far more linear an effect and change to were written. At one of our lunches, he wrote his family It was about victory bonds.
He told them that if he might get to come home. After he told me that he almost cried. And I say I prefer because there's less -
John
In many ways was an odd best-seller. It opened with a famous line, all this happened, more or less. That was a signal that fact and From there, the book in time and space. It told the story of Billy whose experiences mirrored added both to the book's Kurt violated a couple of He said the book was a how it would end, but it worked.
Readers, particularly young authenticity, to Kurt's but always human voice. There is no beginning, -
John
A voice that sounded Primarily, I choose to teach so relevant to students. He took one of the major the bloody, and he took a with anything in history in And when you, I'm sorry but when you believe he slaughterhouse and he picking out the dead bodies. I mean, holy geeze, -
John
Part of the reason the ages of his children he didn't condescend to them. With youth today, I'm not interested I don't write teenage fiction. I wroie grown up fiction are taught in colleges I think what makes is the softness of it it's more like a or whatever, it to almost being beaten is very, very specific. If trauma is such that other and you have Billy snowdrifts in a silly it's all sort of So I think he kept that specifically and intentionally.
-
John
The book's success The most obvious and immediate to Jane Cox Vonnegut, who he She supported his writing when his books didn't sell. My mother (laughs) I really think without her, of a writer or wouldn't I found a letter "Oh my God, I'm "It sounds like bragging, "but I'm scared it'll "it'll never, it'll be So she recognized it and said, "What happened in "I don't know how I can do it, "I cannot do it I think one of the reasons is that Jane, who we adored, was he loved the adventure You understand that, he did and he liked having It was easier for him when so he was sharing it and the fact that people were You will find people who are incredibly who chronicled and and all the manuscripts it was in many ways, the and the end of their marriage. They just had this baby it was a labor and it's looked at it like that was Their marriage couldn't survive. -
John
He and Jane two years after They divorced in 1979. His fame created other It had many, many parts. I mean, as a good which I'm also very proud in British Columbia people would be this is Peter, this I was the only hippie -
John
His children to cope with a celebrity even invaded their Having Peter Fonda for a marsh trump, you would have these to be selling off which were precious. Like, you would start and you'd set a and then you just go there, but Kurt had described that Peter Fonda and his and film it and be On the one hand, you have but I think as the children, -
John
At one point, Mark There was a lot of anger "So you become famous and "I thought we were supposed "in that family. "That's not original -
John
Kurt never responded His fame also isolated Kurt had also, not but also sight recognition. Many writers, people wouldn't but Kurt Vonnegut, was like a symbolic person and his intuitive responses, and I was with him lost of his intuitive responses He would retreat and I think it left an aspect of depression. Once Kurt and I were in Indianapolis, he There were hundreds many of them carrying He asked me to get When I got back from I found him hiding I handed him his drink. He took a sip and then another.
He said, "They started "I just had to get away." He knew he was as him wherever he you live a pretty lonely life. -
John
The fame and the on Kurt's work. Unlike many writers, whose work is rejected, they "really are not very smart." And what Vonnegut thought was, "My stories aren't good enough." And so he worked to make his -
John
The success of for Kurt to get that He knew that he could write and he sort of regretted that. He said, "Nobody dares "I miss editors." -
John
Kurt could show He never mentioned the glowing but he could recite word for He also thought other writers received more I think it came from his whatever, but he was and would come up with He thought he looked He thought his I mean, there were teenage kinds of And I also think his came from the fact that he so popular among young other writers took Mailer far more seriously and as less serious or young people got him. Kurt sometimes or even mask his When a fire at his home some of his records, he get a new birth certificate. He seemed to be in a hurry. I called someone I knew who solved the problem.
When I called Kurt the new birth certificate I asked him what the rush was. "Well, John," he said. "They do have "the Nobel Prize for Literature In his heart of a much better writer certainly Stein, they're but he whether or not he he did not feel less than. He felt that other people and that would change over -
John
Whatever pains caused its author and the book did establish and enduring American writer. The Kurt Vonnegut Museum just had a grand at a much larger location. A special exhibit of was one of the star attractions. The vast majority of that to "Slaughterhouse-Five", and to monthly around "Slaughterhouse-Five" It's important to -
John
The book also and colleges and It's not a book that you the inter mediator to Students, you listen so it's a book that you "What did you think?" Like when we think we sort of just jumble to what is associated to -
John
Kurt for more than a dozen years, so it goes, but 50 years was first published, all of and "Slaughterhouse-Five" copies every year. In random houses list of the 20th century, came in at number 18. Slaughterhouse is and I mean, you can see, we're It just brings up things about war and freewill to be alive and to There's an aspect to friend's overstatement, because he was a And when you think of all in the world who write that are distinguished writers, there was a voice of his own. And the writing, Slaughterhouse That was part of his soul.
I went to a marathon where they read it for each reader was eight minutes and I could not leave my what a beautiful book it was and how beautifully It was like having It's just such a big "Well other things are big But it's a beautiful, (somber music) Gideon Bible in my motel room for tales of great destruction. The sun was risen upon into Zo-ar, I read. Then the Lord and upon Gomorrah from the Lord out of Heaven. And he overthrew those and all the inhabitants and that which grew So it goes.
Those were vile people as is well-known. The world was better And Lot's wife, of course, Where all those people But she did look back Because it was so human. So she was turned So it goes. People aren't I'm certainly not going I've finished my war book now.
The next one I write This one is a failure written by a pillar of salt. It begins like this. -
Kurt
Listen, Billy Pilgrim It ends like this, poo-tee-weet. (somber music) (somber music) -
Narrator
The Children's "Slaughterhouse-Five" at through the generous Janie and Mickey and the Franklin College
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