Kurt Vonnegut carved out a special niche in American literature — fanciful, profound, imaginative, with a spirit infused with a love of fellow man and a mischievous sense of humor. In this video, the Vonnegut personality is on full display as he draws the shapes of stories. It’s hard to explain, which is why it’s so great it’s on YouTube:
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Discussion
5 Thoughts on "Kurt Vonnegut on the Shapes of Stories — A Charming, Logical, and Whimsical Lesson"
I was fortunate enough to see Vonnegut speak live at my university campus (UT Austin) and part of his talk was this lecture.
Unfortunately, the video leaves out the best part.
After showing the graphs of the stories in the video, he then goes on to plot Hamlet, which is more or less a flat line from left to right.
His point was that great literature (like life) is ambiguous.
Yes, I saw him give this when I was in college as well. I still think about the Cinderella curve versus Hamlet’s straight line, and what that says about life and great literature. He actual wrote about it in his last(ish) book, Man Without a Country. http://www.amazon.com/Man-Without-Country-Kurt-Vonnegut/dp/081297736X/ref=sr_1_17?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315859696&sr=1-17
