Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons

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Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions) is a collection of essays, reviews, short travel accounts, and human interest stories written by Kurt Vonnegut from c. 1966-1974.

Vonnegut explains the title in the introduction: "Dear Reader: The title of this book is composed of three words from my novel Cat's Cradle. A wampeter is an object around which the lives of many otherwise unrelated people may revolve. The Holy Grail would be a case in point. Foma are harmless untruths, intended to comfort simple souls. An example: "Prosperity is just around the corner." A granfalloon is a proud and meaningless association of human beings. Taken together, the words form as good an umbrella as any for this collection of some of the reviews and essays I've written, a few of the speeches I made."

Contents:

Science Fiction - "I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled “Science Fiction” ... and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal."

Brief Encounters on the Inland Waterway (1966) - recounts a journey from Massachusetts to Florida on the Kennedy yacht crewing for their captain, Frank Wirtanen (whose name had been borrowed for the character of an American intelligence officer in Mother Night).

Hello, Star Vega
Teaching the Unteachable
Yes, We Have No Nirvanas
Fortitude
There's a Maniac Loose Out There
Excelsior! We're Going to the Moon! Excelsior!
Address to the American Physical Society
Good Missiles, Good Manners, Good Night
Why They Read Hesse
Oversexed in Indianapolis
The Mysterious Madame Blavatsky
Biafra: A People Betrayed
Address to Graduating Class at Bennington College, 1970
Torture and Blubber
Address to the National Institute of Arts and Letters, 1971
Reflections on My Own Death
In a Manner that Must Shame God Himself - "The two real political parties in America are the Winners and the Losers. The people don’t acknowledge this. They claim membership in two imaginary parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, instead."

Thinking Unthinkable, Speaking Unspeakable
Address at Rededication of Whaton College Library, 1973
Invite Rita Rait to America!
Address to P.E.N. Conference in Stockholm, 1973
A Political Disease
Playboy Interview

A characteristic of this short nonfiction is that Vonnegut frequently includes himself directly, as he starts to do in his novels from the 1960s. He may write reportage, but he is open about who is reporting and how he feels about what he is reporting. One of the most interesting aspects of this material for the reader is the emergent relationship between observer-writer and subject. By revealing his attitudes to the subject he reveals much of himself. Vonnegut's association with the short story was far from over, however, and he prepared and introduced a new collection, Welcome to the Monkey House (1968), which included eleven of the twelve stories from Canary in a Cat House and fourteen others.

Works of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Short story collections — Canary in a Cathouse (1961) | Welcome to the Monkey House (1968) | Bagombo Snuff Box (1999)

Collected essays — Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (1974) | Palm Sunday, An Autobiographical Collage (1981) | Fates Worse than Death, An Autobiographical Collage (1990) | God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (2001) | A Man Without a Country (2005)

Plays — Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970) | Between Time and Timbuktu, or Prometheus Five: A Space Fantasy (1972) | Make Up Your Mind (1993) | Miss Temptation (1993) | L'Histoire du Soldat (1993)

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