Not a huge fan of the stories this week. They were alright, but nothing mind blowing. I was entertained, but don’t feel as if I will remember most of them for longer than a few months. The only exception to these feelings is “Harrison Bergeron”. Now that I think of it though one is a third of the stories I have read this week as I have yet to read the last of the week. I will still stand with my judgment though, as with a title like “The Yellow Wallpaper” I do not have the highest of expectations for the story I will surely read tomorrow in one of my frees. Now I will get back to the seven foot tall dude.

A story about a seven foot tall fourteen year old trying to take down a fascist regime can’t miss; or at least not completely miss, just mostly, as five pages is not nearly enough to do such an idea justice even if Vonnegut got across the message he wanted to send. I really don’t care for Vonnegut’s message, I would rather the story be epic. It should be epic in the sense that there is more drama, more action, and a few hundred more pages. He could still stress his whole extreme uniformity vs. extraordinary selfish power idea, but he could have Harrison destroy a few more people and possibly robots, zombies, etc. in the process. This just goes back to my hate for endings and to have one come so soon with a concept this good is just painful.

How I would fix it

More about Harrison, much more. I want to know how he got to where he is in the story. How would anyone possibly get that smart and strong throughout their life with all the handicaps? Do they teach them, just to have all the knowledge made useless by the handicaps? I want to know Harrison’s goals. I have to believe that he would have some better plan and means for executing his take over of the world, than the pitiful attempt that we see at the studio. I want to see a revolution, as people remove their handicaps and have to realize their own capabilities. I want to see the rise and the fall of Harrison as he takes this new freedom so far that everyone is once again a slave, but this time to the most superior rather than to the least common denominator.

There could be a reversal of the technology making everyone as powerful as everyone else bringing about another world of the same people. Harrison and his perfect Empress could have an imperfect child, a weak heir to the throne of the world causing new strife as the old muscle is thrown the curb by the new muscle. Maybe there would be mental affects from removing handicaps, causing some to go nuts, or some to get super powers, or something else cool like that. The story would end the same way. Harrison would be killed as that is the only real way to end a story about a man of such power. He would have accomplished more, we would have loved him, we would have hated him, and he would have been a superhuman, but die like any other man. The world would be better without him, but would have been worse without him.

This probably sounds horrible as I wrote it and I am not a writer, but Vonnegut was. He should have written it. Instead of dieing he should have lived so he could take it back and fix it so I wouldn’t be so frustrated. A movie might fix some aspects of it. There is one with SAMWISE GAMGEE????? Playing Harrison; haven’t seen it doesn’t sound like it would fix much. What needs to happen is for Michael Bay to make a film trilogy out of the story. It would rock, it would have product placement, and it would rock. (666)