n  "One foot in front of the other --- through leaves, over bridges---"n

This is a short story about forbidden and true love, ardently written by Kurt Vonnegut. He has a way of showing intense emotions using simple words and repetitions. . . Oh my .. That ending ...

A collection of amazing short stories by an excellent writer. I think this was the Junior Class Play my Junior Year in High School. Do they still do stuff like that?

This was the first collection of short fiction I read by Kurt Vonnegut. He'd been introduced to me by friends in high school who raved about Cat's Cradle, but beyond that one book I don't believe I read anything by him again until college. As with most short story collections, some are very good, some not so good.

Vonnegut does a wonderful job with a short story and while most stories were "okay" to "yeah, I liked it I guess", it's definitely worth it for the few 4 to 5 star ratings.

"Where I Live" (Venture- Traveler’s World, October 1964) - 2/5 Kinda boring and no real plot. Just meandering
"Harrison Bergeron" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1961) - 5/5 Loved this one - science fiction - Handicapping people so everything is fair and no one can take unfair advantage because of their looks, intelligence, physical prowess, etc. Sad but true and hilarious at the same time - exactly what Vonnegut does best.
"Who Am I This Time?" (The Saturday Evening Post, 16 December 1961) - 3/5 A play that I guess Vonnegut had to put on (Street Car Named Desire). I don't know if it's a true story or what, but it sounded autobiographical. Main actor who acts amazingly in everything and duddy female actor who he is able to bring out of her shell.
"Welcome to the Monkey House" (Playboy, January 1968) - 4/5 - Another science fiction story where the world is overpopulated and there exists a mandatory pill called "ethical birth control" that doesn't make it impossible to have children (the ethical part), but makes you numb from the waist down. Another sad but true, although I don't quite agree with the jab against religion in this one.
"Long Walk to Forever" (Ladies Home Journal, August 1960) - 3/5 A military man visits a woman he's in love with and who's about to get married.
"The Foster Portfolio" (Collier's Magazine, 8 September 1951) - 2/5 Nothing really exciting here. A financial consultant consults a man who's reasons for how he manages his money are more than they seem.
"Miss Temptation" (The Saturday Evening Post, April 21 1956) - 3/5 An actress struts her stuff, but is brought down for no reason she can help.
"All the King's Horses" (Collier's Magazine, 10 Feb 1951) - 5/5 A game of chess becomes a game of survival. Definitely one of the best of the collection
"Tom Edison's Shaggy Dog" (Collier's Magazine, 14 March 1953) - 4/5 A funny story about a really annoying "me monster" (Brian Regen) who corners a man in the park.
"New Dictionary" (The New York Times, October 1966) - 3/5 Who hasn't looked up dirty words in the dictionary? :)
"Next Door" (Cosmopolitan, April 1955) -4/5 Pretty funny story about a kid who hears fighting next door and tries to help. Assume makes a what out of whom?
"More Stately Mansions" (Collier's Magazine, 22 December 1951) - 3/5 Quaint story about interior decorating.
"The Hyannis Port Story" - 3/5 Secret Service calls a Commodore Rumfoord (a name that comes up a few times in Vonnegut's work) about his son. Rumfoord is not a big Kennedy fan.
"D.P." (Ladies Home Journal, August 1953) - 3/5 A kid in a prison camp meets his "father".
"Report on the Barnhouse Effect" (Collier's Magazine, 11 February 1950) - 3/5 - SciFi - Barnhouse is a scientist who discovers an interesting talent he has.
"The Euphio Question" (Collier's Magazine, 12 May 1951) - 4/5 - SciFi - An interesting discovery leads to "happiness" although it's more than you bargain for.
"Go Back to Your Precious Wife and Son" (Ladies Home Journal, July 1962) - 3/5 A famous actress and her fifth husband have some work done on their bathroom.
"Deer in the Works" (Esquire, April 1955) 3.5/5 An owner of a newspaper decides he needs something more secure and gets hired on at a large corporation. Say bye bye to your freedom.
"The Lie" (The Saturday Evening Post 24 February 1962) - 3.5/5 About a father's excitement for his son to enter boarding school.
"Unready to Wear" (Galaxy Science Fiction, April 1953) - 4/5 - SciFi - Bodies are really just a pain in the neck aren't they?
"The Kid Nobody Could Handle" (The Saturday Evening Post, 24 September 1955) - 2/5 A boy who's been neglected all his life acts out. Actions speak louder than words.
"The Manned Missiles" (Cosmopolitan, July 1958) - 4/5 This was a really emotional tale about two astronauts' fathers writing each other whose sons recently died.
"EPICAC" (Collier's Magazine, 25 November 1950) - 4/5 - SciFi - Our narrator has a discussion with the smartest machine in the world.
"Adam" (Cosmopolitan, April 1954) - 3/5 - This one was definitely close to home for me, I have a seven month old. Babies are great.
"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" (Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1954) - 4/5 - SciFi - Another story about overpopulation in the future. In this one, because of a new anti-aging drug, there are so many people, each family lives together for generations and there are no more resources.

In my mind, Kurt Vonnegut is the writerly equivalent to an eccentric, sarcastic, but kindly old uncle, the one you can always count on to take the stuffing out of your more puffed-up, less agile-minded relatives at family Christmas parties, while giving you a sly wink. In an important way, he was a voice for America in the 1950s and 60s, both a counterpoint to and a commenter on "mainstream" attitudes. He could do zaniness, anger, sorrow, and gentleness equally well.

This collection is a fine intro to what made the man great. A few stories fall a little flat, and a few feel dated, but most still resonate in one way or another. In style, they range from memoir to science fiction to allegory to absurd satire to"straight" fiction, which make them interesting as a prismatic breakdown of the eccentric, eclectic voice Vonnegut uses in his longer works. My own favorite story was a poignant piece about a half-black German orphan who encounters a unit of black American GIs in post-WWII Europe, and the friendship he forms with a particular soldier.

The standout story here is "Harrison Bergeron" (1961), which is a classic, 5-star story. It's available online at: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harri...
If you've somehow missed reading it, or it's been awhile, youre in for a treat.

Otherwise, it's a mixed bag of (mostly) 1950s stories. Most of them haven't aged well. Here are the better ones:
"Miss Temptation" (1956): a soldier comes back from the Korean War, and insults a pretty girl in his hometown. 3 stars.
"Tom Edison's Shaggy Dog" (1953): an amusing, well, shaggy-dog story. 3 stars.
"Report on the Barnhouse Effect "(1950). Prof. Barnhouse makes an unusual scientific discovery, enforces world peace. 3 stars.
"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" (1954): a day in a very overcrowded future, after the invention of anti-gerasone. Eh, 2.5 stars.

The rest of them that I read, around half of the collection, are 2-star at best, and some below. So this is one for Vonnegut completists, I think.

i really enjoyed this. going in, i didn't realize it was a collection of short stories. there are some standouts, but the majority are good. my favs are harrison bergeron, new dictionary, barnhouse effect, and unready to wear.

Really good and thought provoking stories.

But less funny than a lot of his full books and lots of stories about the terrors of overpopulation which feels dated

A varied and uneven collection of Vonnegut's short stories. Some read like Yankee Magazine or Saturday Evening Post stories: boy home from WW II gets girl stories, or Vonnegut's 'hometown' stories of Barnstable, Massachusetts on Cape Cod.

Others, the better ones, play to Vonnegut's strengths, like the title work. These are science fiction with Big Themes like thought control, enforced birth control, a cemented-over world, weapons of mass destruction, and variations on Big Brother.



A 3.5, rounded up.

{Edited 6/5/23]

You'd THINK that, what with Vonnegut having written one of my all-time favorite classic sci-fi novels "Sirens of Titan", not to mention "Slaughterhouse Five", you'd think I'd have remembered that he wrote "Harrison Bergeron," one of the great classic sci-fi short stories (it was even in a school textbook of mine) and the second story in this collection. Somehow I never put that together in my head, that it was a Vonnegut story, though I should've; a dystopian more-than-a-little-tongue-in-cheek story not-so-subtly pointing fingers at the status quo and the moral majority? Of COURSE it's a Vonnegut story.

Which is why I'm even MORE embarrassed that I didn't realize the LAST story in this book was a Vonnegut story. ANOTHER of the all-time great science fiction classics, ANOTHER story that was in one of my high-school textbooks, and ANOTHER of my favorites, "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow." I LOVE this story, and it wasn't until I found it in this collection that I realized it was a Vonnegut. It's wonderfully snide, with an ending that isn't EXACTLY happy but certainly not unhappy and DEFINITELY satisfying...Vonneget, classic Vonnegut. You think I'd have figured that out before now.

I didn't like every story in the collection ("The Kid Nobody Could Handle" was pleasant, but felt like he didn't figure out where the story was going until it was almost done, which is the same problem I had with "Go Back To Your Precious Wife and Son", "Deer in the Works" and "The Lie") but most of them were wonderful. "Tom Edison's Shaggy Dog" was hilarious, and "D.P." was very sweet, and I was so surprised at how much I loved "The Foster Portfolio." Once again, he can't quite bring himself to make it a COMPLETELY happy ending, but you finish it thinking that it had the perfect ending, and that's what Vonnegut does best.

Din recenzia care va apărea în curând pe Bookblog: „Kurt Vonnegut creează lumi verosimile plecând de la idei neverosimile. Nebunești. Absurde. Și, din nefericire, absurdul lor, pe măsură ce povestea înaintează, devine din ce în ce mai puțin absurd. Te trezești că acel lucru s-a întâmplat, se întâmplă sau se poate foarte ușor întâmpla. Cândva, în viitor. Dar nu foarte departe. Dar ele au nevoie să fie dezvoltate mai pe larg, nu concentrate în sticluțe mici, precum parfumurile scumpe. Pe de altă parte, majoritatea povestirilor oferă suficiente detalii, sunt suficient de dense cât să aibă și cap, și mijloc, și coadă, cât să nu lase cititorul dorindu-și mai mult, mult mai mult. Au exact dozarea necesară. Unele dintre ele.

Problema cu volumul de față este că unele povești nu duc nicăieri. Încep și se termină la fel cum au început, nu au nicio finalitate, nu vin cu nimic nou. Comis-voiajorii (care apar, dacă rețin bine, în trei povestiri din douăzeci și cinci) rămân tot comis-voiajori, cuvintele rămân cuvinte (nu ca în povestea cu dicționarul), actorii rămân actori, se schimbă prea puțin, prea nesemnificativ ca să îl facă pe cititorul cel pretențios din mine să își mai amintească ceva și peste o bucată mai mică sau mai mare de timp.

Altele, în schimb, ajung să dăinuie. Sau să fie preluate, transformate, adaptate, de alți scriitori, scenariști și regizori de film. Doar au trecut mai bine de șaizeci de ani de la apariția majorității poveștilor. În fine, unele au devenit legendare între timp, și, pe de altă parte, probabil că, pentru a înțelege cu adevărat măsura talentului, geniului chiar al lui Kurt Vonnegut, ar trebui să abordez măcar unul dintre romanele menționate ceva mai sus.”
Mai multe, pe Bookblog: https://www.bookblog.ro/recenzie/dist....

This collection of early short stories, mostly from the 1950s, displays Vonnegut's versatility--of subject matter, theme, and style; and also his grasping for an identifiable, unique personal style. At this point, he already is a mature, assured writer. Except for possibly "The Manned Missiles" (which nonetheless has the same clever twist ending as many of the other stories in this collection) all of the stories in this compilation are great. Vonnegut's command of narrative and descriptive detail are solid. His irreverance is not always as pronounced as it would be in his later novels, but one begins to spot several instances of trademark Vonnegutese (the phrase "being amphibious" in the story "Unready to Wear" feels like something out of "Slaughterhouse Five"). There's often a Runyonesque gentility and sense of irony in the pieces, and always great generosity and sympathy toward his characters--even the ones he mocks--and their dilemmas, some of which are small every day ones and some that are enormous in their moral and life-and-death implications. Written in a time of Cold War fears, the non-sci-fi pieces are mostly about everyday people trying to find value and purpose in small things, in traditions, in comradeship, in love, while larger corporate, technological and political imperatives pull at their souls.

The preface--a gracious and funny homage to his family and only a slight introduction to the works--was written circa 1968 when this collection appeared and gives us the familiar Vonnegut irreverence. In it, Vonnegut seems slightly embarrassed and ashamed about some of the early pieces therein, but he needn't have been. Actually, in a published grading of his own works (done years later), Vonnegut gave this collection a B- when stacked against the entirety of his ouevre. Not too bad. If it were an option, I'd give this collection four and a half stars. I'm recommending it strongly to all.

Several of the stories in the collection are science fiction and like a lot of science fiction from a half century ago the accuracy of the predictions offered are hit-and-miss. What strikes me most impressively, though, is how many of Vonnegut's ideas--whether later creators were aware of them or not--managed to show up in later written works, movies, tv shows, etc.

The human chess game played in "All the King's Horses" (1953) became the motif of a famous episode of the cult tv show, "The Prisoner" in 1967.

Bullard's exhortation and business advice to a stranger in "Tom Edison's Shaggy Dog" (1953) to "Go plastic, young man!" predates the more famous iteration of that same advice in the film, "The Graduate" 14 years later.

The much-quoted Vonnegut gem from this collection, "A sane person to an insane society must appear insane," has been paraphrased and restated ad infinitum in popular song and other entertainments ever since.

The computer blowing its lid in "EPICAC" is a motif that would show up several times in Star Trek.

Politically, the book offers a more moderate Vonnegut, but one of my favorite quotes (from the short story "Welcome to the Monkey House" about future sterilization taken to an extreme) shows his true (and good) colors, and his understanding of the ongoing modus operandi of right-wing types:

“If you go back through history, you’ll find that the people who have been most eager to rule, to make the laws, to enforce the laws and to tell everybody exactly how God Almighty wants things here on earth – those people have forgiven themselves and their friends for anything and everything. But they have been absolutely disgusted and terrified by the natural sexuality of common men and women.”