Scan barcode
A review by ericbuscemi
Basic Training by Kurt Vonnegut
3.0
I have very mixed feelings about this. Not about this novella, which I thought was interesting, thought-provoking, and deep -- especially considering it was only 22,000 words long -- but the fact that there is so much unpublished content from Vonnegut still waiting to be released.
When Vonnegut died back in 2007, I thought I only had a relatively small amount of his fiction left to read (having already read seven of his fourteen novels, and some of his short stories). When Armageddon in Retrospect was released in 2008, I erroneously thought it was the last of his unpublished works bundled together in a short story collection, and I scooped it right up and read it.
But in an article about the release of Basic Training, it is made clear that there are "hundreds of other unpublished literary pieces in his estate, of which Basic Training was picked by Rosetta Books through Vonnegut's literary executor." I mean, hundreds? Just, wow.
On one hand, this seems to be awesome news for Vonnegut fans, as his estate should have enough of his work to publish posthumously for coming decades. But on the other hand, there must be a reason that Vonnegut chose not to publish these pieces during his lifetime, and I feel strange and voyeuristic reading words he may never have written for public consumption (although in this particular case, he did try to have this story published -- it was rejected by the Saturday Evening Post in the 40s).
If he really thought this remaining material was great, wouldn't he have published it during his life? Do we really want to remember his legacy from hundreds of scraps he didn't deem worthy of publication after his fame allowed him to publish anything he wrote? I don't have an answer to my own questions, other than the fact I bought and read this novella -- and at least in this case, the output was of high quality and definitely worthy of publication.
When Vonnegut died back in 2007, I thought I only had a relatively small amount of his fiction left to read (having already read seven of his fourteen novels, and some of his short stories). When Armageddon in Retrospect was released in 2008, I erroneously thought it was the last of his unpublished works bundled together in a short story collection, and I scooped it right up and read it.
But in an article about the release of Basic Training, it is made clear that there are "hundreds of other unpublished literary pieces in his estate, of which Basic Training was picked by Rosetta Books through Vonnegut's literary executor." I mean, hundreds? Just, wow.
On one hand, this seems to be awesome news for Vonnegut fans, as his estate should have enough of his work to publish posthumously for coming decades. But on the other hand, there must be a reason that Vonnegut chose not to publish these pieces during his lifetime, and I feel strange and voyeuristic reading words he may never have written for public consumption (although in this particular case, he did try to have this story published -- it was rejected by the Saturday Evening Post in the 40s).
If he really thought this remaining material was great, wouldn't he have published it during his life? Do we really want to remember his legacy from hundreds of scraps he didn't deem worthy of publication after his fame allowed him to publish anything he wrote? I don't have an answer to my own questions, other than the fact I bought and read this novella -- and at least in this case, the output was of high quality and definitely worthy of publication.