Kurt Vonnegut, the great American satirical novelist, died on Wednesday at the age of 84 as a result of head injuries sustained in a fall at his home in New York last week.

“So it goes” is the catchphrase that runs throughout Slaughterhouse-Five, his best known work. It was a refrain that seems to sum up his long and varied life, and the ironic detachment with which he composed his masterly portraits of human folly. Best known for his novels of the 1960s and early 1970s Cat’s Cradle, God Bless You, Mr Rosewater, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut believed that art was a way to make your soul grow”, a way to stave off television’s capacity to numb through repetition.