Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons

Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons

First edition
Author Kurt Vonnegut
Country United States
Language English
Publisher Delacorte Press
Publication date
1974
Media type Print (Paperbook)

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.

On the title

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

Vonnegut's style

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 later prepared and introduced a new collection, Welcome to the Monkey House (1968), which included eleven of the twelve stories from Canary in a Cathouse and fourteen others.

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