(Read for uni)

Finally got around to some Kerouac, and I do plan to get around to the big one, On The Road. Like a lot of Kerouac this was written at a breakneck pace, in this instance under 2 weeks, and you can certainly tell, for better and for worse. When it's at its best, it's a gorgeous work of trying to find spiritual enlightenment and the self in a country which has seemingly wiped that side of life from function. At its worst it is nauseatingly aimless and full of itself. From what I'm told, On The Road suffers from this as well, and you definitely gotta take the bad with the good. The highs are definitely worth it in the long run, but this is likely not one I'll reread in the forseeable future. 

Traversed this short story collection at a very glacial pace, I'm aware lol. This was a lovely read to pick up! I'm very glad this was the Vonnegut I sought out this after the astounding Slaughterhouse-Five, because there is great versatility at play here. We have the gleefully cosmic and cynical alongside character-driven and devastatingly real, the earnest alongside the ulterior. Unfortunately, there are some duds, some problematic elements that are certainly a product of their time, and so on. However, the highs are so gripping and ecstatic and wonderful that it more than warrants this score. Individual short story ratings below. 👇


Where I Live - 5/10
Harrison Bergeron - 10/10
Who Am I This Time - 8/10
Welcome To The Monkey House - 5-6/10
Long Walk To Forever - 8/10
The Foster Portfolio - 9-10/10
Miss Temptation - 9-10/10
All The King's Horses - 10/10
Tom Edison's Shaggy Dog - 7/10
New Dictionary - 8/10
Next Door - 9/10
More Stately Mansions - 9/10
The Hyannis Port Story - 6/10
DP - 10/10
Report on the Barnhouse Effect - 9-10/10
The Euphio Question - 9-10/10
Go Back To Your Precious Wife And Son - 8-9/10
Deer in the Works - 9/10
The Lie - 9/10
Unready to Wear - 9-10/10
The Kid Nobody Could Handle - 9/10
EPICAC - 7-8/10
Adam - 8/10
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - 9/10

One of my favorite on-a-whim discoveries in a minute, as soon as I caught the basic premise of this play I knew I was gonna be a sucker for this. I ended up watching a super charming lil high school performance of this on youtube while following the text and I quite loved my time with this work. I think this play is definitely flawed, it spends time on some extraneous details of this world while hardly mentioning others; just a very uneven work. However, it is such an unabashed execution of an incredible concept that it warrants its flowers. It is just as grisly and bewildering as it is beaming with great hope for today's culture, the footprint of our current slice of the boundless history of the earth, in the face of the absurd. I love Washburn's tight control of dialogue, and I'll certainly need to check out more of her work. :D