#381 Souvenir- Kurt Vonnegut
One of the great things about Vonnegut stories is the
simplicity of his form. The first paragraph usually tells you exactly what the
story is about. This story is no different:
“Joe Bane was a pawnbroker, a fat, lazy, bald man, whose
features seemed pulled to the left by his lifetime of looking at the world
through a jeweler’s glass. He was a lonely, untalented man and would not have
wanted to go on living had he been prevented from playing every day…the one
game he played brilliantly—the acquiring of objects for very little, and the
selling of them for a great deal more.”
Another common theme in Vonnegut works is WW II, himself
being a veteran and survivor of the Dresden bombing. One day a man walks into
Joe’s pawn shop and wants to sell a very expensive watch. Of course, Joe tries
to undercut the man. Then we hear an amazing tale about how the watch was
acquired in the Sudetenland after the German surrender.
The man walks out after the story, unwilling to be taken
advantage of, and Joe, in his greed losses out on a great and historic find.
The tale itself was enough for a short story, but putting it in context of a
flashback surrounding this war-prize, makes it more interesting, and vintage
Vonnegut.
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