The literary world is diminished somewhat <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/308ee984-e8e9-11db-a162-000b5df10621.html".with the passing of Kurt Vonnegut, whose works were rife with social commentary and lines that gave conservative high school English teachers fits since the publication of Slaughterhouse Five, the story of a war veteran whose timeline comes loose and snarls itself around parts of history that it wouldn't otherwise be touching.

Vonnegut got his start in journalism, but wound up writing fiction when it didn't pan out in Chicago in the late 1940's. His early stories didn't get much press time but were …