A Connecticut Yankee

But there was a sound here which interrupted the stillness only to add to its mournfulness; this was the faint far sound of tolling bells which floated fitfully to us on the passing breeze, and so faintly, so softly, that we hardly knew whether we heard it with our ears or with our spirits.

- Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

If you took Twain's style and ran it through one of those paint-mixing machines they have at Home Depot, I think you'd end up with Vonnegut.