Vonnegut was a popular – or demotic – artist gifted with an exceptional inner ear.

until recently I was retching and whimpering away with some brio

Of all the literary genres, panegyric is easily the dullest. Yet I must now praise the Hitch.

If you can lay down a verbal surface free of asperities (bits of lint and grit), you will already be giving your readers some modest subliminal pleasure

Otherwise, last words are dross, like the defunct human body.