An excerpt from an article by Danielle Furfaro:
Vonnegut's many novels, short stories, essays and plays contained elements of social commentary, science fiction and autobiography. He drew much of his early science fiction inspiration from his days as a public relations man for General Electric in Schenectady. He worked for the engineering giant from 1947 to 1950. "Player Piano," with its futuristic vision of corporate control and images of vast machinery, is a thinly veiled reference to the Electric City at its postwar zenith. In an interview earlier this year on National Public Radio, Vonnegut called the GE of the late 1940s, "American industry at its best," producing everything from turbines to insulators to water wheels.
"The world needed these things, and General Electric was good at it," said Vonnegut. "After the Second World War, the whole world had been knocked down, and we were going to have to rebuild it."
It was at GE that Vonnegut began to seriously write. After he left the company, his literary career moved into full swing. Yet, he refused to take himself too seriously. "I had a big family," he said during the NPR interview. "I had to write every day to pay the damn bills."
Comments