A new orpheus in october ‘52

RonPrice

Mr. RonPrice
One of the major science-fiction writers of the 20th century was Kurt Vonnegut Jr. He was born right at the start, in the first year, of the first century of the Baha'i Formative Age, in 1922. Kurt Vonnegut’s first book, a sci-fi thriller, Player Piano, was released in June of 1952, four months before the Baha'i Ten Year Crusade was launched in October 1952. This was the eve of the Holy Year commemorating the centenary of the rise of the Orb of Baha’u’llah’s most sublime Revelation, the first intimation of His glorious Mission.

The year I was born, 1944, the young adult, Vonnegut Jr., was taken prisoner by the Nazis; the year I joined the Baha’i Faith, 1959, Vonnegut published his second novel The Sirens of Titan. Vonnegut’s third major book was published the year of the first election of the Universal House of Justice, 1963. When last I heard, in 2006, Vonnegut had been lecturing at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and at Harvard University as well as being a Distinguished Professor at the City College of New York.-Ron Price with thanks to “Several Internet Sites,” Kurt Vonnegut Jr., June 2006.

You’ve been picking fun at the military,
religion and the establishment all my life,
Kurt—and you’re still at it. I’ve followed
you around ever since I was a kid with your:
skepticism, satire, poking fun at everything
in sight--bleakly comic, despairing of mankind:
you’d do well in Australia with your values!

Your autobiography was there in your books,
your views, your feelings about past, present
and future. You put your life into those books,
your inner struggles, a whole lot of stuff, Kurt!1

Yes, Kurt, you were like those sirens of old,
those sea nymths surrounded by dangerous
rocks—with your enchanting songs and those
who drew near were so often shipwrecked.
Like Odysseus I escaped your cynical songs,
tied as I was to the mast of another ship and,
like Jason and the Argonauts I was saved by
the music of a new-day Orpheus.

You should have heard Him;
Kurt, you should have heard Him!

1 Marek Vit, “Autobiography and Philosophy in the Personal Novels of Kurt Vonnegut: 1968-1979,” Kurt Vonnegut Corner, April 2nd 1998.

Ron Price:cool:
 
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