Liberal Arts Blog — Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) “Harrison Bergeron” (1961), A Few Random Quotes, Biographical Tidbits, And His Report Card
Liberal Arts Blog — Tuesday is the Joy of Literature, Language, Religion, and Culture Day
Today’s Topic: Kurt Vonnegut (1922–2007) “Harrison Bergeron” (1961), a few random quotes, biographical tidbits, and his report card
Are you a Vonnegut fan? If so, what is your favorite book of his? Short story? Favorite sentence? paragraph?
His life was weird. He was a prisoner of war in Germany when the Allies fire bombed it. He survived because he was being kept in a meat locker in the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned.
He had grown up in a German-speaking household in Indiana but had not been taught German because of the anti-German sentiment following World War One — the result being that he felt “ignorant and rootless.”
His mother, depressed by the family’s decline in economic status during the Depression as well as by her own failure as a writer and her toxic marriage, committed suicide when Kurt was 22.
Vonnegut’s most famous books are Cat’s Cradle (1963), (Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), and Breakfast of Champions (1973). How did the author grade his own work? See footnote below.
Experts — please chime in. Correct, elaborate, elucidate.
HARRISON BERGERON — “A Dystopian satirical science fiction short story” — plot summary
1. “In the year 2081, the Constitution dictates that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or physically more able than anyone else.” (3rd link below)
2. “The Handicapper General’s agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear “handicaps” — masks for those who are too beautiful, earpiece radios for the intelligent that broadcast loud noises meant to disrupt thoughts, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic.”
3. Harrison Bergeron is a 14 year old, seven foot tall genius who rebels against the system and is killed by the Handicapper General with a shotgun.
HARRISON BERGERON — THE OPENING — you must read the whole thing. It’s not very long. (Fourth link below for the full text — 2194 words versus 63,776 for “A Brave New World,” and 89,000 for “1984” — what a bargain!)
1. “The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else.”
2. “All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.”
APOLOGIES, AMBER, HISTORY
1. “Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
2. “Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.”
3. “History is merely a list of surprises…it can only prepare us to be surprised yet again. Please write that down.”
FOOTNOTE A — Vonnegut grades his own work.
FOOTNOTE B — his “prettiest contribution to culture” (his own words)
1. Was his University of Chicago Masters thesis in anthropology which reduced all stories to 8 shapes.
2. He was proud of bringing scientific rigor to the field of literary criticism.
3. The thesis was rejected.
See second to last link below which includes a four minute video featuring the author himself. If you know of a funnier video by a famous author or anyone else for that matter, please feel very guilty if you don’t share it.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Quotes (Author of Slaughterhouse-Five)
https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
Slaughterhouse-Five — Wikipedia
Breakfast of Champions — Wikipedia
Kurt Vonnegut on the 8 “shapes” of stories
Kurt Vonnegut Creates a Report Card for His Novels, Ranking Them From A+ to D
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
My spin — then periodically review, re-rank, and exchange your list with those you love. I call this the “Orion Exchange” because seven is about as many as any human can digest at a time. Game?
ATTACHMENTS BELOW:
#1 A graphic guide to justice (9 metaphors on one page).
#2 “39 Songs, Prayers, and Poems: the Keys to the Hearts of Seven Billion People” — Adams House Senior Common Room Presentation, (11/17/20)
NB: Palestine Orion (Decision) — let’s exchange Orions, let’s find Rumi’s field (“Beyond all ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. Meet me there” Rumi, 13 century Persian Sufi mystic)
THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF POSTS ORGANIZED THEMATICALLY INTO FOURTEEN BOOK-LENGTH PDFS:
PDF with headlines — Google Drive
Please share the coolest thing you learned this week related to words, language, literature, religion, culture.
Or, even better, the coolest or most important thing you learned in your life related to Words, Language, Literature (eg. quotes, poetry, vocabulary) that you have not yet shared.
This is your chance to make someone else’s day. Or to cement in your own mind something that you might otherwise forget. Or to think more deeply than otherwise about something dear to your heart. Continuity is key to depth of thought.
