{"id":861,"date":"2017-11-01T15:00:14","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T21:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=861"},"modified":"2017-10-01T10:12:19","modified_gmt":"2017-10-01T16:12:19","slug":"book-welcome-to-the-monkey-house-1968","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/11\/01\/book-welcome-to-the-monkey-house-1968\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WelcomeWelcome to the Monkey House
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 1968
\nAuthor: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
\nLength: 686 minutes \/ 11.43 hours<\/p>\n

Much like short story anthologies by a single author (see Neil Gaiman\u2019s\u00a0Smoke and Mirrors<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and Ray Bradbury\u2019s\u00a0The Golden Apples of the Sun<\/a><\/em>),\u00a0Welcome to the Monkey House<\/em>\u00a0is both quintessentially a collection of Kurt Vonnegut\u2019s biting wit and satire as well as an exploration of other genres not often associated with Vonnegut\u2019s style. Fans of Vonnegut will likely have already read some of these short stories (like \u201cEPICAC\u201d and \u201cTomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow\u201d), but some of the other stories might have been missed and for a good reason.<\/p>\n

Overall,\u00a0Welcome to the Monkey House<\/em>\u00a0is a fantastic set of stories, but a few of them fail to have the impact to make them memorable. Granted, these stories are few and far between, and help to break up the well-written social commentaries presented in \u201cHarrison Bergeron\u201d and the titular \u201cWelcome to the Monkey House.\u201d Vonnegut\u2019s ability to show the slippery slope of such ideas as \u201ceveryone is equal\u201d and \u201csex is bad,\u201d respectively, is just as poignant in short form as it is in his novels. The fusion of technology in these stories might seem dated by today\u2019s standards, but they do reveal that Vonnegut was, inherently, a science-fiction writer.<\/p>\n

What this collection does well is show that Vonnegut understood the importance of the characters in a story. One of the most entertaining in this collection was \u201cWho Am I This Time?\u201d which contained characters at such extremes of human expression as to be completely unrealistic but somehow relatable and entertaining. Stories like this, which don\u2019t necessarily follow the political or societal commentary that the other stories provide, are nice breathers that give the reader a smile instead of drilling thought-provoking ideas into their skulls. It\u2019s this balance that truly makes\u00a0Welcome to the Monkey House<\/em>\u00a0a must-read.<\/p>\n

Vonnegut, true to form as well as outside his element, I give\u00a0Welcome to the Monkey House\u00a0<\/em>4.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the Monkey House Year: 1968 Author: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Length: 686 minutes \/ 11.43 hours Much like short story anthologies by a single author (see Neil Gaiman\u2019s\u00a0Smoke and Mirrors\u00a0and Ray Bradbury\u2019s\u00a0The Golden Apples of the Sun),\u00a0Welcome to the Monkey House\u00a0is both quintessentially a collection of Kurt Vonnegut\u2019s biting wit and satire as well […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,54],"tags":[931,55,952,933,934,8,525,524,814,953,932,935],"class_list":["post-861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-0-stars","category-book","tag-931","tag-book","tag-epicac","tag-herrison-bergeron","tag-kurt-vonnegut-jr","tag-review","tag-short-stories","tag-smoke-and-mirrors","tag-the-golden-apples-of-the-sun","tag-tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow","tag-welcome-to-the-monkey-house","tag-who-am-i-this-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=861"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":868,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/861\/revisions\/868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}