Was Kurt Vonnegut a nice man? (opens in new tab)

Once KV’s brother Bernard, who was a well-known atmospheric scientist, came to the Darthmouth physics department to give a seminar. We had these on Fridays on various topics. A murmur went through the audience as we realized that, next to Bernard in the front row, sat Kurt. The department chair got up to introduce the speaker, but cut short his introduction to ask Kurt to introduce him. KV half-stood up, half turned around to us, and simply said, “My brother Bernard knows what he’s talking about. I think you should listen to him.”, or words close to that. Then he shut up and sat down.

KV refused to distract our attention from his brother. He knew that if he got up to address us that we would want him to keep talking, so he didn’t. He deliberately minimized his presence as much as possible. Nevertheless, the respect he had for his brother's expertise was palpable.

This was my only encounter with Kurt Vonnegut the person, and it made a powerfully positive impression on me.

Nearly 20 years ago I was out to dinner with my girlfriend and who is sitting at the table next to us other than Kurt Vonnegut. He took a liking to my companion and basically pulled our table over to his as we listened to him regale us with stories. The man lived.

I can't say if he was universally nice, but on that night he was nice, charming, and a pleasure to eat dinner with.

Thank you for posting this. Very interesting read on one of my favorite authors. People are complicated, which is a theme his works explore a good deal.

Terrible headline but some intesting content.

Not sure I buy that being depressed or even suicidal makes you not "nice" as a general concept.

> If you Google Vonnegut, one of the most-asked questions that comes up is: “Was Vonnegut a nice person?”

I’m surprised people care that much or that it matters.

I love his books. Whoever wrote them wrote them well. The rest is his own business and that of his friends, business partners and family. Not mine certainly.