Vonnegut and Long Walk to Forever

“Long Walk to Forever” By Kurt Vonnegut presents a situation in which a man and a woman who grew up together reconnect a week before her wedding to another man. The plot is well-trod ground, boy is childhood friend of girl, boy leaves for X reason and girl meets boy 2. The first boy returns from X and find girl and convinces her to be with him. This plot is standard romantic-comedy fare, such as in the movies The Notebook, Great Expectations, and When Harry Met Sally, only to be out done by the Girl detests Boy and then falls for Boy trope. In “Long Walk to Forever” the characters “Newt” and “Catherine” share a mutual attraction but never act on it. Newt joins the Military while Catherine meets and becomes engaged to “Henry” . Newt returns and Catherine is at first frustrated by Newt because prior to leaving for the Military he never told her how he felt. As the story goes, we learn that Henry is a nice man, but Catherine has that “something” with Newt. As with the majority of stories like this Catherine ends up with Newt.

Kurt Vonnegut is most known for his science-fiction works such as Slaughterhouse-5, Cat’s Cradle and Harrison Bergeron. “Long Walk to Forever” is a purely character driven story without a hint of focus on technology. Pure and simple, this is a story about a boy, a girl and love. Most of his popular works have some element of fantastical science, such as the Ice-9 from Cat’s Cradle or the character “Billy Pilgrim” from Slaughterhouse-5 and his subsequent time-traveling. The New York Times Book reviewer David Eggers explains the disconnect; “Vonnegut was until early middle age a practical and adaptable writer, a guy who knew how to survive on his fiction. In the era of the “slicks” — weekly and monthly magazines that would pay decently for fiction — a writer had to have a feel for what would sell” (Eggers para 4). Many of the stories in Welcome To The Monkey House share this medium and the book is actually a compilation of previously published stories from various magazines.