Discovering the short stories of writers best known for their novels is one of my favorite parts of writing this blog. I feel like I'm being let into a secret club. I've read several Vonnegut novels, giddily spooning the satire down my world-weary throat. The two stories from this week were like taking a bite of chocolate ice cream when what you really want to do is bury your face in the entire half-gallon, but both are sticking with me and have kept my wheels turning, two of my criterion for excellent short stories.
I chose "Deer in the Works" from the collection because of its workplace focus. Office Space is one of my favorite movies and I have a loosely-formed idea for a connected short story collection set in a dysfunctional office, so I figured it would be useful research.
To my fellow writers, it's worth tracking this story down. David Potter is a writer seeking out more stable employment in the field of industry. Sound familiar? The only problem is that his creative mind makes him unsuitable for the bureaucratic nightmare Vonnegut imagines at the Illium Works of the Federal Apparatus Corporation where he applies for a job in the publicity department.
"Harrison Bergeron" is a little bit of a story about a world where the government imposes handicaps on its citizens in order to make everyone average. The beautiful wear masks, the gifted are blasted with annoying audio clips at regular intervals to disrupt their thought patterns, and the strongest are forced to carry weighted bags to ensure that everything remains peacefully even. Harrison, as you can guess, is so exceptional that he is able to burst free from these confines to rule the world, if only for one beautiful moment (that unfortunately no one will remember thanks to the evil Diana Moon Glampers).
If you're a Vonnegut fan, if you love Office Space, if you are a writer, or if you question our "everybody gets a trophy" culture, you'll love these stories.
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