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April 12, 2007
When Dave and I first met, he gave me a copy of "Breakfast of Champions."
My senior year at Smith was the year when Kurt Vonnegut came to campus as a visiting professor of creative writing. I was taking a Comparative Literature class on "The Postmodern Novel" in which we read Slaughterhouse-Five and the author came to speak to our class one day. He was gruff and a bit grumpy and we were all very shy about asking him anything. One young woman, who studied Italian, asked him if the name "Tralfamador" came from some Italian word meaning (I don't remember what) and symbolizing (some such other thing). He responded (in a way that would make you not want to question him on the subject again): "THE ONLY SYMBOL IN THE NOVEL IS THE COLUMN OF FLAME AT THE BOMBING OF DRESDEN."
He then went on to tell us the story of how he came up with the name "Tralfamador." He said that when he was a small boy, growing up in Indiana, his older siblings would go outside at night, look up at the sky, and try to point out all the constellations. He didn't know any constellations and felt left out and so, one night, he pointed straight up at some stars and proclaimed: "That one's Tralfamador!"
(Photo from the NY Times obituary)
Posted by kelseyfrost at April 12, 2007 08:30 PM
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