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I’ve been reading the notes at the back of the Library of America’s 2012 compilation Kurt Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1950–1962, because a) I get a kick out of that kind of thing and b) I’ve already read all of the novels and stories themselves. And I’m surprised by what the editors thought needed to be explained to me so I’d understand Vonnegut’s allusions.
Here are some things the Library of America thought I wouldn’t get without explication.
Rube Goldberg machine
Rosicrucians
Horatio on the bridge
Black Maria
Jim Thorpe
Maxfield Parrish
Tweety and Sylvester
Le Sacre du Printemps
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Mata Hari
Adolf Eichmann
Maxfield Parrish
Cyklon-B
Werner von Braun
Maggie and Jiggs
I did need to be told, however, that a Helen Twelvetrees is a “cocktail of Southern Comfort, ginger ale, and blackberry concentrate,” because I only know of her as a movie actress from the ’30s. But then, I don’t drink. I presume the non-teetotalers out there already know about it.
That being said … am I wrong to believe that anyone likely to pick up a copy of Kurt Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1950–1962 is already aware of each of those people and things, making such explanations unnecessary? Or am I, unlike H. L. Mencken, overestimating the intelligence of the great masses?
True — I hadn’t considered that these notes were not for our generation, but for the generations yet unborn. However, if that’s their true intention, the inverse of my original proposition may be true, and MANY more pages of notes are required for the works to be intelligible! 😉
William Shunn
I am a cocktail drinker and had never heard of the Helen Twelvetrees (which sounds sweet and disgusting). But more to the point, intelligence is not the same as knowledge, and I can envision plenty of intelligent people, particularly younger readers, needing some of those things explained. Moreover, I think Library of America editions are meant to stand the test of time, and a reader a hundred years from now would likely not know them all either.