Kurt Vonnegut: "My God, Vesuvius has erupted again!"

At 79, the author of "Slaughterhouse Five" reflects on Sept. 11, death, heaven and the meaning of life.

By Christopher Kemp

Dec. 12, 2001 | About three miles from author Kurt Vonnegut's apartment, teams of construction workers are still sifting through tons of steaming rubble 24 hours a day, trying to find the remains of those who perished in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.

Vonnegut says the attack reminded him of Mount Vesuvius.

In February 1945, Vonnegut was witness to another pretty good imitation of Mount Vesuvius: the firebombing by Allied forces of Dresden, a town in eastern Germany, during the last months of World War II. More than 600,000 incendiary bombs later, the city looked more like the surface of the moon. Returning home to Indianapolis after the war, Vonnegut began writing short stories for magazines like Collier's and the Saturday Evening Post and, seven years later, published his first novel, "Player Piano."

Finally, in 1969, he tackled the subject of war, recounting his experiences as a POW in Dresden, forced to dig corpses from the rubble. The resulting novel was "Slaughterhouse Five." Banned in several states -- and branded a "tool of the devil" in North Dakota -- it carried the snappy alternative title: "The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., a fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much) who, as an American infantry scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, 'The Florence of the Elbe,' a long time ago, and survived to tell the tale: This is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from. Peace."

Catchy. With an alternate title like that, it's safe to assume the 79-year-old Vonnegut might have something to say about the Sept. 11 attacks, bringing Dresden to downtown Manhattan, and also the current war in Afghanistan, life and death, and what might come after.

I phoned Vonnegut for an interview. One of the first things he said was, "You don't sound like an American." He's right. I'm English, which wasn't a problem until he blamed me for the destruction of Dresden, an event that took place 27 years before my birth. Incidentally, this makes me -- by his estimation -- much too young to be taken seriously. Regardless, I maintain my innocence.

What is the purpose of life?

Well, I have a son who writes very well. He just wrote one book; it's called "The Eden Express." It's my son Mark, who is a pediatrician and who went crazy and recovered to graduate from Harvard Medical School. But anyway, he says, and I've quoted him in a couple of my books, "We're here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is." That's pretty good, don't you think?

Death is a central theme in many of your books. Why does it play such an integral role in your fiction?

Well, it's so terribly interesting to everyone. There's two things that people can't take their eyes off: People fucking and people getting killed. [laughs] These events seem to be terribly interesting. And also, we don't see it very often. I had one young woman, a student of mine, complain that she had never seen a dead person, and I said to her, "One must be patient."

Your mother committed suicide in 1944, on the eve of Mother's Day. You've also written extensively about your time as a soldier in World War II. Do you think these experiences, which took place when you were in your 20s, contributed to your attitudes toward death?

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