For much of my life I have believed that there are people who were born to read things out loud. My father, to me, has always been one of those people now. He could be reading a letter from his cable company and I'd be immediately transported back to my childhood, when he read books out loud to me to help me fall asleep. I credit this partially for my love of books, audio production, and my favorite joining of these two things: audiobooks.
Some people, I do believe, should read aloud more often. John Green is also one of these people, and today's video is good proof of that.
Welcome (or welcome back) to Vlogbrothers Rewatch! This is an ongoing series of articles in which I document my very long and ambitious journey through every single video uploaded and publicly available on the Vlogbrothers YouTube channel. Using this playlist, I'm rewatching everything in chronological order starting from the very beginning. I am doing this for moments like this -- when I am reminded that reading aloud is not a skill everyone has, and that those who do are blessed.
I was taking high school English when Kurt Vonnegut died. I remember our teacher mentioning it and not understanding why that was significant at the time. Then that same teacher made us read Slaughterhouse-Five, and I still didn't understand the significance of any of it. Sometimes it's not until you recognize how certain authors are inspired by those who have come before that you finally understand why they and their work mattered.
Listening to this passage, it's easy to see how much Vonnegut inspired John. You can hear it in the way the prose seems to flow steadily as if the words were always meant to fit together in such a way. It almost makes me want to give Vonnegut another chance.