Beschreibung
UNPUBLISHED SHORT STORY, TYPESCRIPT DRAFT; WITH FRAGMENT OF SECOND STORY. These two short stories survive from Kurt Vonnegut's early attempts to become an author, after the end of the Second World War in 1945 and years before the publication of his first piece of fiction, yet alone novel, in 1950. The period between Kurt Vonnegut's return from war-torn Europe and the publication of his first piece of fiction "Report on the Barnhouse Effect" in 1950 is replete with rejected short stories by the fledging fiction writer. And the two unpublished stories present here could easily sit themselves among the numerous works from this unhappy time in Vonnegut's early adulthood which have only posthumously received public attention. However, the Indianapolis address given at the bottom of "One for 'A'" helps to locate the story to a narrow timeframe after the war but before Kurt and his newly-wed wife Jane commenced their graduate studies at the University of Chicago. "In October [1945] Kurt reported to Fort Riley and was assigned to the secretarial pool," writes biographer Charles Shields (p. 84). "In his spare time, he continued to write stories and mail them to Jane, who was living with her parents in Indianapolis until Kurt's discharge" and by "December 1945, the Vonneguts were in a brick apartment building at 3972½ Ellis Avenue in Chicago." (Shields, pp. 84-85). Vonnegut would not return to Indianapolis for a long time, moving to from Chicago to Schenectady, NY for a job with General Electric, having had one MA thesis rejected and leaving a second incomplete-"another of my failures" that casts a shadow over this era for the incipient author (Vonnegut quoted in Shields, p. 92). Further evidence for the early dating of "One for 'A'" comes from the subject matter itself. The story depicts a despondent widower, reminiscing over his late wife, and his butler, who ensnares the mind of his employer with tell of mystic seers who can communicate to those beyond the grave. The methodology for this contact with the supernatural, per the butler's instructions, involves listening for raps on the table, with one rap indicating the letter A, two indicating B, and so on. This may sound familiar, as a similar incident occurs in Vonnegut's first novel Player Piano, published in 1952 (p. 306): Meanwhile, Paul and Harold passed the time of day. "Ain' a bit sorry," said Harold. "Wha's 'at tap-tap-tappin'?" The irregular tapping came from the other side of the sheet-metal wall that separated Paul's and Harold's barred cell from the totally enclosed tank for desperados next door. Experimentally, Paul tapped on his side. "Twenty-three-eight-fifteen," came the reply. Paul recognized the schoolboy's code: one for A, two for B. "Twenty-three-eight-fifteen" was "Who?" A butler's occultist hearsay is transformed into a "schoolboy's code", juxtaposing the grandeur of "One for 'A'"'s setting with the "sheet-metal wall" of Paul's industrialist backdrop. But the common thread is the un-sophisticated, working-man solution that the code represents in both contexts-easily understandable by all regardless of differences in social standing and effective in attaining their characters' goals. It seems unlikely that Vonnegut would repeat the 'one for A' motif after the publication of Player Piano in a short story, thus placing a cold terminus ad quo on "One for 'A'" of 1952. In addition to the Indianapolis address and its bearing on the time frame, these factors firmly demarcate the unpublished work by Vonnegut as one from his earliest years as a writer. The second story included remains untitled, on account of only the final five of what would have been eleven pages surviving. But, like "One for 'A'", it captures a distinct sense of Vonnegut's, even its fragmentary state. A boy in midwestern suburbiana yearns to flee to the east coast, to attend Harvard, and his dedicated girlfriend will help him in even the most ridiculous of circumstances-no stretch of the imagination is. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 2585
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