Welcome to the Monkey House
First published 1950 · English · 352 pages
- Novels
- Science fiction
- Dystopia
- Satire and humour
This is a collection of short stories written by Vonnegut over many years, many of them first published in popular magazines. The stories range from science fiction to ordinary domestic comedy and sadness. The title story imagines a crowded future in which people are made to take drugs to lose all interest in sex, and a few rebel. Others involve odd inventions, small-town life, and people trying to hold on to their dignity. The collection shows the wide range of his early imagination and his dry, humane wit.
Quotes
The public health authorities never mention the main reason many Americans have for smoking heavily, which is that smoking is a fairly sure, fairly honorable form of suicide.
I never knew a writer's wife who wasn't beautiful.
The village would never accept it. It has a policy of never accepting anything. As a happy consequence, it changes about as fast as the rules of chess.
It was then that Diana Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, came into the studio with a double-barreled ten-gauge shotgun. She fired twice, and the Emperor and the Empress were dead before they hit the floor.