So It Goes . . . .

The phrase "So it goes" is an expression often used by Billy Pilgrim, the main character in the book Slaughterhouse-Five—and it is with great sadness that I learned this morning of the passing of that book's author, a truly great American literary figure: Kurt Vonnegut.

Please don't take the title of this post as being cruel or sarcastic—it is meant as the highest form of flattery and respect.

I don't know why that phrase has stuck with me so well over the years, but it has. It always seemed to capture an adequately balanced mixture of abject cynicism or optimism—as the occasion warranted—and total acceptance, a sort of "Well doesn't that just figure; oh well!" quality about it. But then, it has been ages (at least fifteen years, I'd venture), since I last reread this book! Time to change that I guess.

Yes, time to change that indeed; I just saw at Wikipedia that the phrase is

used whenever death or dying is mentioned (be it that of a man, an animal, or the bubbles in champagne), serves to downplay mortality, making it routine and even humorous

and goes on to mention

Vonnegut used the chorus "So it goes" every time a passage deals with death, dying or mortality, as a transitional phrase to another subject, as a reminder, and as comic relief. It is also used to explain the unexplained. There are about 106 "so it goes" anecdotes laced throughout the story.

As for the book itself, sure it is confusing the first time through (or seventh or tenth if you don't have the right mindset to see what it all means), but it is an exceptional book. I highly recommend repeated readings of it to suck out all of the available nuance (of which there is an abundance!)

Oh, yes, and he also did not give the infamous Wear Sunscreen commencement address at MIT in 1997.