Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction: Amazon.de: Kurt Vonnegut: Englische Bücher

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From out of the blue, here's a new collection of Vonnegut fiction--his first magazine stories from the 1950s in book form at last, with some charming reminiscences (and three new endings for old stories) by the author. Vonnegut says these tales were meant to be as evanescent as lightening bugs, and that image captures their frail magic. They're like time travelers from an epoch when stories swarmed in mass-market magazines, before TV dawned and doomed them.

Later greatness glimmers here: the offbeat sci-fi of "Thanasphere" (in which an astronaut encounters dead souls in space) and the hero's bogus adventures in alien lands in "Bagombo Snuff Box" look forward to Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, as do the war stories "Souvenir," "Der Arme Dolmetscher," and "The Cruise of The Jolly Roger," which incorporate and amplify Vonnegut's actual war experiences. There's authentic midcentury news here, even in the gentle Saturday Evening Post social satire of "The No-Talent Kid," "Ambitious Sophomore," and "The Boy Who Hated Girls," which pretty much nail the high-school marching band experience. The pieces are peppered with odd, true observations and neat little turns of phrase: one incompetent kid in Lincoln High's band marches "flappingly, like a mother flamingo pretending to be injured, luring alligators from her nest."

You can't miss the ironic humor and the humane, death-haunted melancholy of the young war veteran and tyro writer. This collection beats his first novel, Player Piano, and anticipates the masterpiece Cat's Cradle, whose tiny chapters resemble short stories. Young Vonnegut is derivative, mostly of Saki and O. Henry, partly because he couldn't think of endings, and their switcheroos offered a handy model. But from the start, Vonnegut's idiosyncratic voice is unmistakable. --Tim Appelo -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Gebundene Ausgabe .

From Booklist

Vonnegut said that his last book, Timequake (1997), would be his last, but no one as imaginative and in love with language and story can resist the lure of the page, and it's obvious that he had a grand time working on this collection of his vintage stories. Welcome to the Monkey House (1968), his first story collection, contains 23 tales, and so does this volume, which also resurrects Vonnegut's earliest efforts, stories written during the fifties and sixties for such popular venues as the Saturday Evening Post and Collier's. In his engagingly autobiographical introduction, Vonnegut describes his stints as a Chicago journalist and PR man for General Electric in Schenectady, New York; his decision to supplement his income by writing; and his rapid success and evolution into a full-time writer. So, here are his literary roots, a set of stories that reflects their era's eagerness to turn the horrors of war into anecdote and to equate technology with progress. Unabashedly fablelike, they can be either sly or sweet, sentimental or vaudevillian, but all are quietly subversive. In "Thanasphere," Vonnegut imagines an early space flight in which an astronaut hears the voices of the dead. Elsewhere he mocks the rah-rah attitude of emerging corporate culture. In "Custom-Made Bride," he contrasts an earnest investment counselor with an obsessive artist, and several ebullient stories feature a small-town high-school bandleader. Rich in low-key humor and good old-fashioned morality, Vonnegut's stories are both wily and tender. Donna Seaman -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Gebundene Ausgabe .

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Not his best work 11. Mai 2000

Von Voice of Chunk

Format:Gebundene Ausgabe

I began reading Vonnegut as a teenager. He was the first writer whose career I actually followed. When a new Vonnegut book got released, I was the first in line. So when I heard that a collection of his long-lost stories was being released, I put in my pre-order months in advance. When the book arrived I dove in head first and read every story in two days. When I closed the book I felt satisfied, but not elated or touched or any wiser -- all the things I usually feel when closing a Vonnegut book. It's not that the stories weren't entertaining -- they were. But that's all they were. They relied too heavily on Maupassant-esque "twists" at the end. After a while it seemed too gimmicky, too tricky. No epiphanies, no enlightenment, and no understanding emerged from these characters. Vonnegut himself has said that the short story is a difficult and elusive art form. He's mastered the novel, the social satire and he's got enough great books to cement his reputation as one of the 20th century's literary giants. But his short stories won't be counted among his many achievements. Read the stories for fun, but read one of his novels if you want exposure to Vonnegut's best work.

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Even in three generations, things don't change that much. 30. M�rz 2000

Von Lisa Ebeling

I enjoyed this collection of Vonnegut's earlier short stories for many reasons: I liked that the same character (high school band instructor George Hemholtz) is the protagonist in three of the stories; several stories had surprise endings; Vonnegut used no profanity whatsoever--and didn't need to in order to be effective and entertaining; and reading Vonnegut's early fiction helps me get a clearer understanding of what life in America was like for my parents' and grandparents' generations. Finally, this group of tales demonstrates the author's keen insight into the lives and minds of women. Although Kurt Vonnegut was born several years after my own grandparents, I myself can identify with several of the female characters in the stories in this collection. I, too, worry that I am becoming a bored--and boring--housewife, "wasting" my potential.

God Bless You, Mr. Reed 8. M�rz 2000

Von Ein Kunde

Peter Reed's resurrection of these stories is a gem. For someone who discovered KV as a high school kid 25 years ago, this book was a real treat. Brought back the fascinating look into the mind of an American prototype. The introduction is a precious bit of Vonnegut on the golden age of reading and magazine entertainment. These are the extra stories I thirsted for when I finished "Monkeyhouse" years ago. I loved it.