Welcome to the Monkey House | Kurt Vonnegut | The year was 2007, and no one read short stories...

Welcome to the Monkey House | Kurt Vonnegut | Glen Williamson performs two of these stories as a play

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Welcome to the Mon...

	Welcome to the Monkey House Kurt Vonnegut The Dial Press, 1998 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 76 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

This collection of Vonnegut's short masterpieces share his audacious sense of humor and extraordinary creative vision.

The year was 2007, and no one read short stories anymore...

Once ubiquitous as sitcoms, the short story has almost become an endangered species. The genre now barely ekes out an existence in obscure literary journals. That's too bad, because one read of "Welcome to The Monkey House" reveals just what short stories can do. From humanist science fiction to askew romance, Kurt Vonnegut mastered the form before he became one of the most popular writers of the twentieth century. Back when books and magazines were television, these stories were submitted to big time magazines such as Collier's, Atlantic Monthly, and The Saturday Evening Post. They printed them. And they paid handsomely in those days. One could once live off of a steady stream of submission income. Those days have, of course, vaporized like so much warm milk. Vonnegut blamed television for the collapse.

Released in 1970, this collection contains some of Vonnegut's earliest work. Elsewhere he wrote that "Report on the Barnhouse Effect," from 1950, was his first published story. It's here, along with at least three absolute classics. "Harrison Bergeron," one of Vonnegut's most cited works, begins with the unforgettable line: "The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal." Think PC gone completely hogwild. The protagonist of "Tom Edison's Shaggy Dog" argues that the light bulb was invented by Edison's dog, not by Edison himself. It's as hilarious as it is poignant. "Welcome to the Monkey House" depicts the future only as Vonnegut could. Everyone has been unsexed, meaning that they possess no feelings whatsoever in the vital areas. A rouge gang seeks to remedy this existence devoid of pleasure, inspired by a certain zoo monkey's inappropriate public actions. Vonnegut seemed to fear well-intentioned totalitarianism. "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" and "Unready to Wear" share this paranoid theme. The rest of the book contains themes as various as Pokémon characters. Stories about war, denial through interior decorating, corporate life, beauty, music as healer, computers in love, a machine that produces endless euphoria, and even a strange romantic tale from "Ladies Home Journal." Pick and choose. Everyone should enjoy something between these covers.

This collection alone would justify bringing back the short story as a popular form of entertainment. But it seems too late for such rabble-rousing. Technology, one of the things the self-proclaimed Luddite Vonnegut feared the most, played an enormous role in ending the golden age of reading. Apart from providing food for thought and laughter, this collection transports readers back to a time when the written word reigned.

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Glen Williamson performs two of these stories as a play

Glen Williamson (Google him) has been performing two of these stories for years as a one-man play: "Who Am I This Time?" and "The Kid Nobody Could Handle."

"Cheers and congratulations again! Your performance Tuesday evening was truly extraordinary. I feel so fortunate to have been there. I called Kurt [Vonnegut] the next morning and raved about you - then wrote him a note and raved some more."
--Sally Forbes, Executive Director, The Beaux Arts Alliance, New York, NY

"It was so good to see your [Vonnegut] show, which I enjoyed enormously. The stories were delightful. There was a thread running through both stories - the oddball characters, and the need for imagination to give them their place in the community. I loved your characterizations, and was bubbling with mirth at the end of the "Romeo and Juliet" piece, as was the rest of the audience."
-- Andrew Floyd
Stroud, England

"I attended [The Kid Nobody Could Handle and Who Am I This Time?] with sixth, seventh, eighth graders from both Waldorf and public schools. The children were captivated. The plots and characters seemed to speak to them profoundly. Glen is a very skilled actor. He brought the characters to life beautifully, fleshing out the unique details and idiosyncrasies of each so that we all felt like we knew them well. He is a flexible, versatile actor able to portray an incredible range of characters. It was powerful and memorable.

You could hear a pin drop in that auditorium...and that's saying something for middle school kids."
-- Jill Wolcott
Lake Champlain Waldorf School
Shelburne, Vermont

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Brilliant Young Vonnegut

This is a collection of Vonnegut short stories that many, maybe all, were published in magazines in the 50's 60's and possibly later. They are a collection insights into Kurt's sense of angle on human nature and the possibilities of our interactions and relations. I read the story Harrison Bergeron when I was in 7th grade and it changed my life forever. Seriously. I no longer thought of Star Trek and Star Wars as being the entire scope of sci-fi, to which I wasn't interested. I eventually have seen all episodes of the original ST, STNG, STDS9, and some of STV but that's neither here nor there. ST and other series like Dune and Hitchhikers have their place, and I've come to respect them, but to me there still is no better sci-fi than that of alt civilizations that play off of mans greed and/or what if things were different. If you've read other Vonnegut classics like Slaughter House 5 or Mother Night, this book gives you a little different look at his interests. This collection has a range of his views, hopes, and some zany characters like Cats Craddle and some subtlety of Breakfast of Champions put into short delightful stories. I love Vonnegut and between him and Herman Hesse I recommend their writings to anyone between the ages of 13 and death. Not that these are kids stories but that I would afford anyone the opportunity to have this author and especially the stories in this book affect them like they did me.

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Some of Vonnegut's best work - but a word of advice...

A short story is a great format in that it allows a writer to focus in on a single idea or episode, then forces the writer to make their point quickly and concisely (or at least that's the hope). In the instances when Kurt Vonnegut executes that formula well in this collection of short stories, you get some of his clearest and most insightful work. At the same time, there are a few turkeys thrown into the mix, but they don't take much away from this book.

One thing I'd recommend to readers is that they read a story or two at a time, then read something else before returning to this collection. The stories start to sound and feel quite similar after a while and begin to lose their impact. I wish I could go back and space out my reading more than I did.

In my opinion, the best stories come early in the book with weaker tales bringing up the rear. However, another reviewer makes exactly the opposite point. Maybe I was just worn out on Vonnegut stories by the end, or maybe that's just the fun of reading something and having your own reaction to it. In the end, that's what makes Vonnegut so good: he makes you react as a reader.

Essential reading for the Vonnegut enthusiast.

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