Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction

Reading Vonnegut's short stories is so intoxicating to me, because I almost always pick them up thinking I'll only read a few...then I read them all at once.

The stories collected in this volume are not all that different from the ones found in Welcome to the Monkey House, which is to say that they are all, at the very least, up to snuff (no pun intended).

What sets these apart is the notion that these are representative of a time when fiction like this had a real fan base and authors of such stories could make a real living. This context makes the somewhat cheesier stories, like "Find Me a Dream," artifacts of their time rather than merely schmaltzy tales.

But then there are the real knockouts, like "2BR02B," which are vintage Vonnegut show more through and through, with characters and endings reminiscent of O. Henry that hit you like a ton of bricks.

He may have been doing it for the money, but these stories are, for the most part, worthy members of the Vonnegut canon. show less

More than just a snapshot of Vonnegut's developing skills as a writer, Bagombo Snuff Box stands as a look back into American life in the mid-twentieth century. Full of stories of marriage, relationships, and love, this book explores changing notions of gender roles and family dynamics through the words of one of the country's greatest writers. Vonnegut's signature gentle humor comes through in early every story, and each reads as a quick jaunt into an easily-resolved dilemma.

This collection is a representation of what magazine audiences at the time wanted to read, more than what Vonnegut wanted to write. It's a fascinating little cultural nugget, and it makes me wonder how popular fiction of today will hold up in fifty or sixty years. show more Surely, 50 Shades of Grey and Twilight will not find themselves among the pantheon of great American literature, while Vonnegut's stories have done just that. show less

Vonnegut is quite reflective and musing upon the war experience, death ("Thanasphere" ), dead lives in need of a trickster ("Bagombo Snuff Box"). In this collection, the stories are emended and improved as explained in the afterword which also touches on the lost market of short stories for magazines. I know I have read at least some before. In this collection or elsewhere? Still what resonates with me the most is the accurate picture of the regrettable hubris of immaturity via the Marittima-Frascati in "The Powder-Blue Dragon".

Pick up this collection of short stories and you'll get to travel back several decades while inside of Kurt Vonnegut's bizarre imagination. It's a long strange trip through 23 previously unpublished stories. The stories in the collection were written shortly after he left his PR job at General Electric, back in the 1950's. That was a time when the nation's magazines provided a ready market for short stories, allowing Vonnegut to begin to make a living off of his creative writing. His rich and fertile imagination gives this collection a wonderful variety. Some of the social and sexual attitudes are dated, but the prices that past for outrageously expensive in the 50's are so very comical now—just imagine $100,000 mansions and rare show more expensive sports cars for $5,651!

Reading Bagombo Snuff Box brought memories flooding back of studying in college and using Vonnegut to "air out my mind" between reading Hegel and Marx. While it's guaranteed that Vonnegut fans will find some new favorite stories, all readers should know that it's impossible to traverse this fertile 23-step path without appreciating this writer's mind and his humorous imagination. You owe yourself some Vonnegut.

(5/01) show less

These are Vonnegut's first published works, so obviously some of them lack a little polish. Still, many of them are recognizable as Vonnegut stories. At the end in the Afterword he has some great insight into the writing world (still true about 20 years later) and the Midwest. (Yay, Midwesterners!)

I really enjoyed these short stories. These aren't sconce fiction except for one or two stories. It demonstates Vonnegut's mastery of storytelling. He could make a rock sound intersting. I love his introductions and epilogues. It really delves into the root of all of his stories and demonstates he doesn't take himself too seriously. These are the stories he had written before and during his first major novel, player piano. Many of the characters, plots and settings are revisited in depth in his later works. It's nice to read them here in their infancy. This book is more for the already established Vonnegut fan for that reason specifically. Fab lines:It proves that the short story, because of its phsiological and psychological effects on show more a human being, is more closely related to Buddhist styles of meditation than it is to any other form of narrative entertainment...a Buddhist cat-napReading a novel, War and Peace for example, is no Catnap. Because a novel is so long, reading one is like being married forever to somebody nobody knows or cares about. show less

This collection is ... well, I can't say it's disappointing, since you know what you're getting when you buy the "uncollected short fiction." This is not Vonnegut at his best.

It's interesting for that very reason: you see his style before he really had a style (some of the pieces are extraordinarily bland and voiceless, especially considering how recognisable Vonnegut usually is), and devoted fans will get a wee thrill each time the voice we recognise makes itself known for a moment or two. ("Is that maybe the first time he ever did that?" I found myself asking occasionally.)

The most evident lack is the wry humour. Without that light touch, his morals seem simplistic and many of his plots slightly saccharine. His later work has many show more similar moralistic elements, but tempered by the feeling that he's laughing at himself all the while. It shows here in a few places, but sadly only a few.

So this is one for the collectors, for the insight it gives about Vonnegut's developement as a writer. If you love him, you may find it deeply disappointing, or you may cherish the flashes of character all the more for their scarcity. If you only like him, this is definitely one to skip. show less