Yankee continued

Even after reading only 3 books of his, I know Kurt Vonnegut's style very well. It is no wonder that he idolized Mark Twain. I was moseying along just fine, laughing at the jokes, pondering the social-political parallels, etc. and all of a sudden I get to a chapter entitled "The Smallpox Hut". I felt like I'd been hit by a brick of pure depression. I hate it when people say that "something" is "something" personified, but I tell you, reading these guys is as close to a personification of life as one can get. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's exciting, sometimes it's boring, and sometimes it sucks the hairy bird. I'm loving the ride, people. Here's an absolutely beautifully written excerpt from "Yankee": (To those of you not in the mood for anything super depressing, look away, I'm warning you)

"Dead?" "Yes, what a triumph it is to know it! None can harm him, none insult him more. He is in heaven, now, and happy; or if not there, he bides in hell and is content for in that place he will find neither abbot nor yet bishop. We were boy and girl together; we were man and wife these five and twenty years, and never separated till this day. Think how long that is, to love and suffer together. This morning was he out of his mind, and in his fancy we were boy and girl again and wandering in the happy fields; and so in that innocent glad converse wandered he far and farther, still lightly gossiping, and entered into those other fields we know not of, and was shut away from mortal sight. And so there was no parting, for in his fancy I went with him; he knew not but I went with him, my hand in his--my young soft hand, not this withered claw. Ah, yes, to go and know it not; how could one go peacefuler than that? It was his reward for a cruel life patiently borne." -Mark Twain, "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"