And the other reason is that there's no cruelty in the man. One reason for this is that Vonnegut's inexplicables are admirably plain, homely, abundant, up front there's no epistemological complication, few philosophical conundrums, just the improbable mess of any probable human week. I know that on some days this very odd writer is good medicine, whatever one's age: on the day when, for instance, you hear that the shelling hasn't stopped, or that the liveliest young mind in your acquaintance can't find work, or that it's been decided, in the newspapers, that the operations mutilating a loved one are no longer regarded as correct procedures. In a long and lavish review of Deadeye Dick for The New York Times - one marked, appropriately enough, by a retrospective mood - Benjamin DeMott addresses Vonnegut's detractors and offers a lovely summation of what marvelous gifts he offers to readers of all kinds, along with a prediction of how their (and perhaps your) appreciation for his work might evolve in time:
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