Building the Monkey House

Credit: WNET-TV/ PBS via Wikimedia Commons

I just finished reading an essay by Gregory D. Sumne called Building the Monkey House: At Kurt Vonnegut’s Writing Table. Using several drafts of Vonnegut’s short story Welcome to the Monkey House culled from the author’s papers, Sumne illustrates Kurt Vonnegut’s writing process through analyzing the evolution of the story from draft to draft. It proves fascinating to see how dramatic the story morphs with each version, and how much material fell away to arrive at the classic story. Sumne’s essay is included in Welcome to the Monkey House, the Special Edition, along with the final version of one of Vonnegut’s signature pieces of writing.

Professor Sumne also wrote a book about Vonnegut’s writing called Unstuck in Time: A Journey Through Kurt Vonnegut's Life and Novels. I think that will definitely be a future read.