Don't Take It Too Seriously

"Don't Take It Too Seriously" is a review of Prize Stories 1966: The O. Henry Awards, edited by Richard Porier and William Abrahams, that was printed in the New York Times Book Review on March 20, 1966.

Summary

Asked recently by a student with "something of a reputation as an apple-polisher" as to the current state of the American short story, Vonnegut—known as a short story expert for having a work once kept by L. Rust Hills of the Saturday Evening Post for six months before it was rejected—replied that it changes very slowly. This point was underscored by comments from the editors of this collection of short stories, who stated that such change is "gradual and so imperceptible" that there are no yearly trends as in many other fields. They take the short story form so seriously that the book is devoid of jokes, at least "Nothing funnier that whatever... Leonardo told Mona Lisa". At the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, the head of the department Paul Engel instructs everyone not to take everything so seriously. Engel had been the editor of the O. Henry Awards collections from 1954-59 but said it was "Too much work for not enough money". The job involves reading all the short stories in some 90 different American periodicals as varied as Cosmopolitan, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Playboy, which surely must deprive the stories of their traditonal intent of entertainment. The results are thus unsurprising—roughly a quarter come from the New Yorker and John Updike was awarded first prize. The view of the editors seems to be that the modern American short story is simply a continuation of the path begun by Henry James, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway.

All that said, several young authors are represented, including Joy Williams who graduated from the Writers' Workshop. Updike's story "The Bulgarian Poetess" is in fact beautiful, but its main character—a middle aged, unmarried male writer—may be more appealing to critics and fellow authors than the general public, such as the man Vonnegut once saw who flung away a magazine, wondering "What in the hell ever happened to Tugboat Annie". In Vonnegut's opinion, the best story in the book is "The Birthday Party" by Gina Berriault, but there are several notable works, such as Williams' "The Roomer", Harry Mark Pekis's "The Prison", Jesse Hill Ford's "To the Open Water", and Georgia McKinley's "The Mighty Distance". However, all of them could have been published in 1937, for they are gentle when the writers most responsive to their times are always barbarians. Some still exist, since at least four are currently in the Writers' Workshop. Vonnegut considered having them thrown out so they could remain original while getting out to see real life, but reconsidered since they probably would have just been drafted, and who would want to read stories about Vietnam?