{"id":5845,"date":"2012-03-14T08:33:32","date_gmt":"2012-03-14T12:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/?p=5845"},"modified":"2012-03-14T08:33:32","modified_gmt":"2012-03-14T12:33:32","slug":"kurt-vonnegut-didnt-think-much-of-science-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/2012\/03\/14\/kurt-vonnegut-didnt-think-much-of-science-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Kurt Vonnegut didn’t think much of science fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

I received a copy of Kurt Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1950-1962<\/em><\/a> in the mail the other day. The book featured a cover photo of a Vonnegut I did not recognize and an essay on science fiction written by a Vonnegut I did not recognize either.<\/p>\n

The photo caused some cognitive dissonance because of what was lacking\u2014the curly hair, that mustache … and where was the cigarette? And as for the essay, well, he may have liked SF writers and editors, thinking them a jovial bunch, “generous and amusing souls,” as he put it, but he sure didn’t like the words on the page.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m sure I read the piece titled “Science Fiction” back in 1974 when it was reprinted in his collection Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons<\/em>, but I’d completely forgotten about it. Maybe you have, too. Or perhaps you’ve never read it. But in writing of the science fiction field of 1965, Vonnegut was quite dismissive:<\/p>\n

Whatever it knows about science was fully revealed in Popular Mechanics<\/em> by 1933. Whatever it knows about politics and economics and history can be found in the Information Please Almanac<\/em> for 1941. Whatever it knows about the relationships between men and women derives from the clean and the pornographic versions of “Maggie and Jiggs.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Oh, but he doesn’t hate all<\/em> science fiction, though, because:<\/p>\n

Along with the worst writing in America, outside of the education journals, they publish some of the best, They are able to get a few really excellent stories, despite low budgets and an immature readership, because to a few good writers the artificial category, the file drawer labeled “science fiction,” will always be home. These writers are rapidly becoming old men, and deserve to be called grand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, in closing, he returns to his basic theme of SF’s low standards, and sums up by saying:<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, if you write stories that are weak on dialogue and motivation and characterization and common sense, you could do worse than throw in a little chemistry or physics, or even witchcraft, and mail them off to the science-fiction magazines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This essay was originally published in the New York Times Book Review<\/em> for September 5, 1965, the same year his character of Kilgore Trout, the science fiction writer, appeared in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater<\/em>. I’d like to think Vonnegut eventually altered his opinion of us based on the changes the field went through in the ’60s and ’70s, but I have no idea whether or not he did. <\/p>\n

Any Vonnegut experts out there know if he ever wrote further non-fiction about science fiction that reflected post-1965 SF?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I received a copy of Kurt Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1950-1962 in the mail the other day. The book featured a cover photo of a Vonnegut I did not recognize and an essay on science fiction written by a Vonnegut I did not recognize either. The photo caused some cognitive dissonance because of what was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[106,56],"class_list":["post-5845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-kurt-vonnegut","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scottedelman.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}