The Sirens of Titan - in London This Summer

And now for something completely different.

A few weeks ago, the London Bubble Theatre Company were kind enough to contact me with details of their forthcoming adaptation of The Sirens of Titan. While there have been previous adaptations of Vonnegut’s second novel, it seems that the London Theatre Company is going quite a few steps further, by offering playgoers a “promenade-theatre” experience. The show promises “an entrance to the Rumfoord Mansion, an opportunity to stroke the Harmoniums of Mercury, and a chance to learn how to survive on Goofball oxygen supplies”.

You can catch Sirens of Titan at a variety of London parks over the summer – perfect for Vonnegut fans that are based in the UK. Tickets are also priced at a fair £9-£16 and more details can be found by visiting the London Bubble Theatre Company website. You can also follow Twitter updates about the play here.

Slaughterhouse Five Summary and Settings

This post covers the locations mentioned in Slaughterhouse Five and offers a summary of the novel.

Slaughterhouse Five Summary

First published in 1969, Slaughterhouse Five remains one of Kurt Vonnegut’s best known works. The novel follows Billy Pilgrim, a wartime chaplain, prisoner of war, optometrist and zoo exhibit, who has become “unstuck in time” and travels between different parts of his life. The novel also features the Tralfamadorians, creatures who cause, and have seen, the end of the Universe, but do nothing about it, instead preferring to “spend eternity looking at pleasant moments”, and Kilgore Trout, a science fiction writer who appears in other novels by Vonnegut. Zipping from Dresden, Cape Ann, Ilium and Tralfamadore, Vonnegut’s novel explores the concept of free will and war.

Tralfamadore and Tralfamadorians

The Tralfamadorians are described as “two feet high, and green, and shaped like plumber’s friends.” The creatures, from the planet Tralfamadore, have both suction cups and shafts and their eyes are located in small palms on top of the latter. Unlike Earthlings, the Tralfamadorians can “see in four dimensions” and pity humans for only being able to see in three.

Billy Pilgrim was “kidnapped” by the Tralfamadorians in 1967. As he was taken through a “time warp”, Billy could be on Tralfamadore for “years”, without being away for more than a “microsecond” on Earth. Billy explains to his daughter, Barbara, that Tralfamadore can’t be seen from Earth, nor can Earth be detected from the home planet of the Tralfamadorians, as both are “very small” and “far apart”.

Chapter Four focuses on Billy’s kidnapping and there is a description of both the spaceship bound for Tralfamadore and the Tralfamadorians. The ship is “one hundred feet in diameter” and makes a noise like an “owl song”. Once on the ship, the Tralfamadorians talk with Billy “by means of a computer”, as they have no voice boxes and communicate telepathically. Billy is anaesthetised and placed in a cabin, while the ship travels to Tralfamadore.

June Updates: So it Goes

It's been a little while since my last update (which covered "The Package"), but just in case you lose heart, today's post is basically to suggest the next locations guide will focus on Slaughterhouse Five.

Often considered as Vonnegut's "best" novel, in a true case of ghastly reflected-glory, this time-travel-meets-Dresden-war-and-Tralfamadore-extraordinaire will form a bit of a landmark on Kurt Vonnegut Settings. What sort of landmark, I'm not quite sure, but nonetheless, it'll probably be pretty special.

So, there we have it, stay tuned for a locations guide to Slaughterhouse Five and hopefully, over the next few weeks, I'll be able to bring you some more of Marek's wonderful Kilgore Trout related work.

The image used in this blog post is of the slaughterhouse where Vonnegut stayed during the bombing of Dresden. The photograph was taken by KeithGard.

The Package Summary and Guide

Today's post covers "The Package", a short story by Kurt Vonnegut which was first published in Collier's and consequently Bagombo Snuff Box.

“The Package” Summary

“The Package” offers insight into the lives of Earl and Maude Fenton, who have just returned from a world cruise to their seemingly perfect, “package” home, which comes complete with a variety of gadgets and buttons to press. As soon as Earl returns home, he receives a phone call from his former fraternity brother, Charley Freeman. Fenton invites Freeman into his home and at the same time, allows a photographer and writer from Home Beautiful to capture various images and provide a write-up of the Fenton’s flawless home.

“The Package” explores the Fenton’s attitude to supposed social divides, with Earl feeling increasingly uncomfortable and even intolerant of Freeman’s (a former “rich kid”) presence in his home. The Fentons make excuses for Freeman to leave, but it is only after his former college friend has left that he realises Freeman had gone past any concern for wealth or social classes. A friend of the Fentons reveals that Freeman has spent the past thirty years in China, having invested in a hospital. Freeman was then “locked up” by “the Commies” and “finally” thrown out of China. After hearing about Freeman’s life, the Fentons become aware of their own foolishness and Earl attempts to “start today all over again” by pressing a button in their hi-tech home.

Kilgore Trout's Stories in Galapagos

Galapagos

New York: August 1988; Dell Publishing Co.

Today's blog post lists the short stories by Kilgore Trout, mentioned in Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos. This article was originally published by Marek Vit, at www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4953/kt_gal.html, but as the website is no longer available, Marek has kindly allowed me to repost the article, here. Hopefully, I can bring you more of Marek's wonderful work, in the future. Please see below for more about Kilgore Trout's short stories in Galapagos.

Untitled 4 - (Sports Robots)

... I just want to add that my father, who was a science-fiction writer, once wrote a novel about a man whom everybody laughed at because he was building sports robots. He created a golf robot who could make a hole in one every time, and a tennis robot who served an ace every time, and so on.

At first, people couldn't see any use for robots like that, and the inventor's wife walked out on him, the way Father's wife, incidentally, had walked out on him--and his children tried to put him into a nuthouse. But then he let advertisers know that his robots would also endorse automobiles or beer or razors or wristwatches or perfume or whatever. He made a fortune, according to my father, because so many sports enthusiasts wanted to be exactly like those robots.
Don't ask me why.
(pages 70-71)

The Era of Hopeful Monsters

It was about a planet where the humanoids ignored their most serious survival problems until the last possible moment. And then, with all the forests being killed and all the lakes being poisoned by acid rain, and all the groundwater made unpotable by industrial wastes and so on, the humanoids found themselves the parents of children with wings or antlers or fins, with a hundred eyes, with no eyes, with huge brains, with no brains, and on and on. These were Nature's experiments with creatures which might, as a matter of luck, be better planetary citizens than the humanoids. Most died, or had to be shot, or whatever, but a few were really quite promising, and they intermarried and had young like themselves.
(pages 82-83)

The photo used in this blog post was taken by Kenn Wilson.