I read with much sadness the passing of author Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (“Kurt Vonnegut, 84, known for dark comic novels, dies after fall,” news, April 12).

Vonnegut’s novels explored, often with humor, the inexhaustible ability of humans, as individuals, governments and corporations, through their greed, thoughtlessness, stupidity and plain cruelty, to cause misery and destruction.

Mr. Vonnegut’s reaction to the world seems to have been a mixture of irony and anger. I imagine his reaction would have been the same, as was mine, had he read the only other headline on the page with his obituary: “Pope says evolution not proven.”

IVAN WOLFSON

Riverside