I like the line because it eases my pessimism. It's foma - a harmless untruth. The truth is that many things are ugly and many things hurt, but if you make yourself believe otherwise, just for a moment, everything seems alright.
I guess my interpretation was one of portraying that untruth to your loved ones after you die, all while knowing how it is. Maybe I'm too cynical for my own good, but there is a dark beauty in that epitaph that I have always been drawn to.
I don't see the correlation. I think graveyards would be much darker if epitaphs were meaningful as opposed to shallow blurbs that are easy to absorb and forget.
The way I see it, the simplicity of just having names and dates and little sayings puts all the focus on the death, whereas a meaningful statement would make you think about life.
In the context of a life lost, that seems very depressing, to be thinking about life while surrounded by those who can no longer think or experience it. To me, graveyards should be about the dead and not the living.
I agree, graveyards should be about the dead, but it should be about their life. Whenever I'm in a cemetery I stroll through the stones and read the names and think about what kind of person they might have been. If the stone also offered a deep message, it would be easier to understand the person's life and appreciate it.
Most people don't think about life on that level, though, and it's misleading to act like they did because of an epitaph written by somebody else. I think a graveyard filled with that kind of enscriptions would be beautiful, certainly, but very dark and lonely. I don't like thinking about the death of beautiful thinkers, especially with epitaphs that presume to sum up who they were in a single flowery phrase. The exception here would be writers who's defining phrase is very clear.
Right, it would take a more cerebral person to truly appreciate the epitaphs. I actually struggled choosing between "less dark" and "more beautiful," which is a strangely fine line.
Yes, there's beauty in light and there's beauty in darkness and there's beauty in indifference and profound covers all of them. I'm not referring to appreciation of the epitaphs, but rather the choosing of them. Most people, in their lifetimes, will not contemplate life on the truly profound level suggested by the epitaphs, unless it was a graveyard of elites. I do think "more beautiful" would be more accurate.
Gah. Screw you. Now I can't stop thinking about what I would want mine to say. Probably some Nietzsche quote. Oh, even better, something from Notes From Underground. The play-on-words would just be perfect.
I love the illustration (and Kurt Vonnegut) but to me that line is INCREDIBLY dark.
I like the line because it eases my pessimism. It's foma - a harmless untruth. The truth is that many things are ugly and many things hurt, but if you make yourself believe otherwise, just for a moment, everything seems alright.
I guess my interpretation was one of portraying that untruth to your loved ones after you die, all while knowing how it is. Maybe I'm too cynical for my own good, but there is a dark beauty in that epitaph that I have always been drawn to.
I don't see the correlation. I think graveyards would be much darker if epitaphs were meaningful as opposed to shallow blurbs that are easy to absorb and forget.
The way I see it, the simplicity of just having names and dates and little sayings puts all the focus on the death, whereas a meaningful statement would make you think about life.
In the context of a life lost, that seems very depressing, to be thinking about life while surrounded by those who can no longer think or experience it. To me, graveyards should be about the dead and not the living.
I agree, graveyards should be about the dead, but it should be about their life. Whenever I'm in a cemetery I stroll through the stones and read the names and think about what kind of person they might have been. If the stone also offered a deep message, it would be easier to understand the person's life and appreciate it.
Most people don't think about life on that level, though, and it's misleading to act like they did because of an epitaph written by somebody else. I think a graveyard filled with that kind of enscriptions would be beautiful, certainly, but very dark and lonely. I don't like thinking about the death of beautiful thinkers, especially with epitaphs that presume to sum up who they were in a single flowery phrase. The exception here would be writers who's defining phrase is very clear.
Right, it would take a more cerebral person to truly appreciate the epitaphs. I actually struggled choosing between "less dark" and "more beautiful," which is a strangely fine line.
If it were 'more beautiful' I would have agreed. I think it would make it much more dark.
Yes, there's beauty in light and there's beauty in darkness and there's beauty in indifference and profound covers all of them. I'm not referring to appreciation of the epitaphs, but rather the choosing of them. Most people, in their lifetimes, will not contemplate life on the truly profound level suggested by the epitaphs, unless it was a graveyard of elites. I do think "more beautiful" would be more accurate.
Ahhh Kurt <3 so dark but so beautiful, just like the book
Gah. Screw you. Now I can't stop thinking about what I would want mine to say. Probably some Nietzsche quote. Oh, even better, something from Notes From Underground. The play-on-words would just be perfect.
I loved Slaughter House Five :) And I agree with you. Also, that was one of my favorite quotes from the book...I like it a lot :)