Oh Vonnegut!

Last semester as part of Colloquium, we read Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five." I actually wasn't very impressed by the book, though I found some parts interesting (such as the repetition of "So it goes..." following the death of a character. But Susan insisted that Vonnegut was one of her favorite authors. I remember her sharing "Harrison Bergeron" with me as we walked up the hill to Hillcrest one afternoon, snickering incredulously the whole way, and I thought, well, I might as well give him another try - thus "Welcome to the Monkey House" appeared on this group's reading list.

I definitely liked "Welcome to the Monkey House" better than "Slaughterhouse Five." Maybe it was the bite sized short story format, that gave a hint of Vonnegut flavor to a different scenario every chapter. Maybe it was because it's set in the future - and offers more room for speculation on my part. The five stories I selected were ones I felt closest to, for various reasons.

"Harrison Bergeron," of course, was the story that drew me to the book. It wasn't that I couldn't fathom a world in which such extremes of the enforcement of equality were possible, it was that I COULD fathom such a world - in our near future. I mentioned religious equality in France - the fact that a country searching to eliminate barriers that cause racial tension could create a system gone so horribly wrong, where religious symbols are treated as gang paraphernalia, is incredible. And to think they're trying to uphold philosophies found in the US Constitution - separation of church and state! The state is, in effect, negating church completely!

"Welcome to the Monkey House," was not chosen because it's the title of the book, nor because (as some people would like you to believe) I'm obsessed with sex in fiction. I actually chose it because of the complete contrast Vonnegut presented to the society in which we live today. Today we are obsessed with sex. I saw a "Torchwood" episode recently (go ahead and laugh, Kerry, you've got me hooked) where an alien came to Earth and fed from human sexual energy. The episode included a montage of one of the characters walking down streets lined with posters for perfume ads featuring scantily clad men and women, ads for underwear (where, of course, the models must wear the item they're selling, and only the item they're selling), etc. While Vonnegut might have been trying to state that a culture that avoids sex at all costs is no better than one that obsesses over it, he was referring to the 1960s - what does it say about our society that we have not evolved in 40 years? Our thoughts towards sex need not get more prudish, nor do they have to become extremely open (as they have). Surely advertising managers are intelligent enough to find some images that don't involve sex to sell arbitrary items like shoes and deodorant?

I selected "Who am I this time?" because I love Kerry. The question of identity was one I felt could be interesting to discuss. As individuals in the process of "growing up," as the experience of living by yourself for the first time, taking control of financial affairs, etc. is part of going to college, we start to define ourselves. How do we present ourselves to a potential employer? A potential professor? A friend? A lover? ...that and the concept of method acting has always fascinated me. I'd love to have the chance to truly lose myself in someone else's skin (something I don't think can be done without truly knowing yourself first, or you run the risk, as Harry Nash did, of losing your own identity).

It seemed to me that "All the King's Horses" was made into a movie at some point...and as it were, Wikipedia notes that it was made into a TV adaptation in 1991, but IMDB has nothing to say about it. Hmm...well, I'm a terrible chess player, and I know if I were placed in the Colonel's position, I'd surely have lost the match about two paragraphs in. I thought the concept of a chess match to the death was very cruel, and that J.K. Rowling really needed to come up with her own plot. The End.

Not quite, actually: the last short story we read was "EPICAC." More than an odd fascination with sex and fiction, I'm interested by the de-evolution of the courting process in society. Here is a computer that wants to love, that writes poetry in the medieval manner of courtly love that is taken advantage of, by man. (An odd reversal of roles when it comes to science fiction, where the computer generally recognizes it is more powerful than man and then takes over the world - here the computer is not quite gullible, more naive). Sadly, today we don't even look to poetry as a means of courtship. Hell, and we even have all the words of past poets at our fingertips - at least Dennis had one thing right.

So there you have it. Why you had to read the short stories you did :) See you at 5:15!