James T. Farrell (speech)

Vonnegut gave a speech at the funeral of writer James T. Farrell on August 24, 1979 before his body was taken to a Catholic cemetery in his native Chicago. It was published in the collection Palm Sunday in 1981.

Summary

James T. Farrell in the 1950s

Vonnegut addressed the funeral at the request of a family member, perhaps, he surmises, as a representative of a generation of American writers influenced by Farrell. Unlike many in the audience, the relationship between the two was not close, but he found him easy to love and admire. Eighteen years his senior and a fellow alumnus of the University of Chicago, Farrell showed Vonnegut and other younger writers that to write about what real life looks like—what is said by people and how it feels—can be beautiful and useful, more so than mere acceptance by polite society. Although someone had placed a cross over his casket, Farrell was not a follower of organized Christianity, instead taking his chances with rationality, compassion, and honor.

The last time Vonnegut was in the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel was for the memorial for Janet Flanner, another midwesterner who became a "planetary patriot" and who, like Farrell, was a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Unlike Flanner, Farrell never attended meetings. He said this was so he would not have to face critics who had attacked him early in his career, supposedly for his bad writing, but also because he was an early anti-Stalinist when it was unpopular in artistic circles. He remained, until his death, "a left-wing thinking man". These criticisms did not humble him, because he was Irish, but they have prevented a true appraisal of his large body of work. At his seventy-third birthday party two years earlier, Vonnegut said that if Farrell came from a smaller country, he would have won a Nobel Prize. This was a bold statement, and also true. The ancient Greeks believed people could not be said to have lived well if they died in unhappy circumstances. While an unpopular view in America, where so many lives end badly, by this standard, Farrell lived a wonderful life, dying in his sleep surrounded by deep love and owing an apology to no one. As a sports fan and athlete, Farrell can only be said to have won.