Citizen Reader

There's a new collection of previously uncollected Kurt Vonnegut stories out there titled While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction. And of course, it's fantastic.

Vonnegut wrote short stories during my favorite era for short stories: anytime but now. I used to really love short stories, but that's because I read authors like Kurt Vonnegut and Ring Lardner and Dorothy Parker--in short, people who wrote short stories I could understand. Most modern short stories leave me either confused or depressed, and let's face it, if I want to feel that way, I'll just leave my house and interact with society.

There's sixteen stories here, and you've even got to like the titles: "The Epizootic," "Girl Pool," "The Man Without No Kiddleys," etc. None of them are earth-shattering, but they all tell a good little story, and because they're all by Vonnegut, they all have a nice little message without making you sick of the message. And of course the man can turn a phrase:

"'I done ate twelve barium meals in my time,' said Noel Sweeny. Sweeny had never felt really well, and now, on top of everything else, he was ninety-four years old."

Ha. That first line (of "The Man Without No Kiddleys") just made me laugh. And then there's this, in the story "Bomar":

"The loudspeaker was playing spring songs when Carmody and Sterling left the sixty-four-year-old Miss Daily in charge, and went out for morning coffee.

Both were lighthearted, unhaunted by ambition as they sauntered along the factory street to the main gate, outside of which was the Acme Grille. It had been made clear to both of them that they didn't have the priceless stuff of which executives were made. So, unlike so many wide-eyed and hustling men all around them, they were free to dress comfortably and inexpensively, and go out for coffee as often as they pleased."

The "priceless stuff of which executives were made." Awesome. The world is a poorer place without you in it, Mr. Vonnegut.