5 Short Stories by Kurt Vonnegut

I have never been a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut. I have found his stories to be a little too farcical for me. Slaughterhouse Five is considered a great story but my attempts to read it have never gotten very far.

Still I was pleasantly pleased with a few short stories that I was able to download for free from IBooks. These too were out there and certainly not as much flesh and bone stories. There is not a sense of realism in Vonnegut stories but these were interesting.

The first story I read was The Big Trip Up Yonder. This story takes us to a future where no one dies. Anti-Gerasone is a medicine that has been developed allowing the aging process to start. Gramps is the head of his family which gets larger and larger as no one dies. How he deals with the crowd in his house is told.

In 2 B R O 2 B Vonnegut takes us to a world that is overpopulated. In order to to deal with this the worlds population has been set to a fixed rate. What this means is that in order to have a child one has to find a volunteer to die. What a Dad has to do when his wife gives birth to triplets is seen.

Where I Live is a nice little story tells about the town of Barnstable on the Cape where Vonnegut lived part of the year.

Who Am I this Time tells of a small town play company.

Best of all is the story of Harrison Bergeron. I recognized it from having read it in college. The story tells of another time in the future where equality is the most important element in life. If one is beautiful they must wear masks, if graceful they wear weights, if intelligent they must wear devices which blast into their ear so that they cannot ponder anything too long. George and Hazel are a married couple living in this time and watching television one night see a man try to take off his handicaps and start people to think for themselves. They do not comprehend that it is their son Harrison, a 7 foot tall genius with amazing strength. How Harrison is dealt with by society is shown.

The futuristic writings are interesting. In small doses. They are a good example of much of his writing. I am not sure a full novel told along these lines would hold me, but these were interesting.