Galápagos

Galápagos – 3.5 Stars:

This is definitely a fun read, beautifully written by Vonnegut. There are some humorous moments, typical of his style, and the messages and reflections are fairly clear and easy to grasp.

It reminded me a bit of The Sirens of Titan in terms of scope and tone—light, enjoyable, but not much more than that. Vonnegut doesn’t always resonate with me, and while sometimes the connection is pure magic, this wasn’t one of those times.

Also, I’ve realized that this kind of light sci-fi—based mostly on speculation and humor without much science or world-building—has started to lose its appeal for me over the years.

Kurt Vonnegut's 11th novel and as so often before challenges his reader.

A global financial disaster has ruined the world. One million years later the ghost of Leon Trout, son of recurring Vonnegut character Kilgore, narrates the story of a boat cruise for the rich and famous, Mick Jagger was to be one of the famous voyagers, that is off to the Galápagos Islands to see the wild life, a voyage of a lifetime. The celebrities don't make it as a financial collapse, a useless war between Ecuador and Peru breaks out and the entire world suffers an apocalypse. No one survives the worldwide catastrophe except those on the boat. It eventually makes its way to the Galápagos Islands and from there all life on earth is descended from the survivors.

The thematic points are that human species is a blend of greed, evil, and good. It is generally Humanist if it likes it or not, at times technophobic and just maybe Darwinist survivors. Vonnegut has always claimed that man is essentially a good creature. FWIW, I wonder if I agree with him on that point, though. On the other hand, he survived Dresden and I pontificate from the safety of a place that has never seen war in its existence.

Vonnegut was as usual, and strangely in my opinion, able to make Sci Fi tropes among the satire, comedy and social commentary very prescient. There was a machine called Mandarax, that was a voice translator and able to suggest quotations from literature and historical figures. I have to admit that I was scurrying down the internet wormhole just to read where a lot of these quotes used came from, and what a joy that journey was. Strangely I said? Sci Fi can fail the vast majority of the time in an attempt to use future tropes that work but for many of Vonneguts futuristic ideas he has had in his books, he has senibly used them as thematic tools. Mandrax was the invention of a Japanese man who was going on the cruise at the behest of a US millionaire who had profitable plans to its use. Google now offers on our phones an app that translates text with one's camera. Mandrax future demise in the book may have been a comment on older generational thought not enjoying new technology. This was sad for the survivors of the apocalypse, really. No longer would they have the joys of (as per wiki and in order of their appearance in the book) Anne Frank, Alfred Tennyson, Rudyard Kipling, John Masefield, William Cullen Bryant, Ambrose Bierce, Lord Byron, Noble Claggett, John Greenleaf Whittier, Benjamin Franklin, John Heywood, Cesare Bonesana Beccaria, Bertolt Brecht, Saint John, Charles Dickens, Isaac Watts, William Shakespeare, Plato, Robert Browning, Jean de La Fontaine, François Rabelais, Patrick R. Chalmers, Michel de Montaigne, Joseph Conrad, George William Curtis, Samuel Butler, T. S. Eliot, A. E. Housman, Oscar Hammerstein II, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles E. Carryl, Samuel Johnson, Thomas Carlyle, Edward Lear, Henry David Thoreau, Sophocles, Robert Frost, and Charles Darwin.


Again, one for the Vonnegut reader in my opinion and recommended as such.

My review of number 1 Player Piano.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6205354368
My review of number 2 The Sirens Of Titan. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6267103559
My review of number 3 Mother Night.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6287961968
My review of number 4 Cats Cradle.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/231371451
My review of number 5 God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/231371734
My review of number 6 Slaughter House Five
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/231370983
My review of number 7 Breakfast Of Champions.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/231371515
My review of number 8 Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6478713647
My review of number 9 Jailbird.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1815571880
My review of number 10 Deadeye Dick.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6904714753

I found this book pretty tedious to read and unnecessarily repetitive in its message about humans our big brains. You'll get what he's saying in the first 3 chapters, but he makes the same point about 2 dozen times over the book. Still give it 4 stars because Vonnegut's prose is stellar, and the webs of stories and the motif of genealogy/evolution are masterful. Simple sentences in the story brought me to tears. That's vonnegut I guess.

The usual Vonnegut fun, enjoyable satiric story which jumps back and forth in time and space and entertains and amuses. Unfortunately, it runs out of steam and peters out rather precipitously. Not in his first rank, but worth the time.

Vonnegut has over the past years become one of my favourite authors by far. His signature non linear narratives leaves you marvelling at his undeniable talent. His criticism on society and human beings in general precise, acid and yet, fun.

This particular book has to be one of my favourite ones by him.

An all round awesome book! Would recommend especially for Big Brained humans.

I was pretty bored while I was reading this. There was any interesting character development and the plot was dull. Vonnegut's writing was as witty as expected, but it didn't make up for the lack of content.

A solid Vonnegut book, with a unique premise and perspective. Our big brains are, indeed, the sources and (sometimes) solutions of all our big problems. Fun read, but not as incisive as his other works. This is perhaps a good introduction to Kurt's writing, though I cannot help but pitch “Mother Night” for such a role.

Misschien, dacht ik, heb ik gewoon een slecht boek genomen. Misschien was Mother Night, dat ik nog niet gelezen had, gewoon een minder werk van Vonnegut. Een jeugdzonde.

Mischien, dacht ik, moet ik gewoon eens een boek herlezen waar ik me van herinner dat ik het goed vond. Enter Galápagos, het boek waar ik een sprongetje van maakte toen ik zag het dat beschikbaar was bij de papierenboekenverhandelaar.

Het was al te lang geleden om me de details te herinneren, ik wist alleen nog de premisse: het verhaal wordt verteld door een geest, een miljoen jaar in de toekomst. De hele mensheid is uitgestorven behalve de afstammelingen van een aantal schipbreukelingen van een toeristencruise naar de Galápagos-eilanden, en die afstammelingen zien er na een miljoen jaar niet meer menselijk uit: eerder een soort zeehonden, met gestroomlijnde lichamen en flippers in de plaats van armen en handen.

In de onsterfelijke woorden van Mr. Horse: No Sir, I Didn't Like It.

“Show, don't tell” is blijkbaar niet aan de man besteed: het is bladzijde na bladzijde van saaie, saaie, saaie expositie. Ook hier wordt de moraal van het verhaal helemaal op voorhand gegeven (alles is de schuld van die verdomde grote hersenen van de mensen), en ook hier wordt die moraal er pagina na pagina in gestampt.

Tussen 1961 (Mother Night) en 1985 (Galápagos) heeft Vonnegut blijkbaar wel een bijscholingscursus “hoe maak ik mijn boeken nóg minder interessant” gevolgd: het hele boek door wordt er een asterisk gezet bij de personages die ergens in de volgende hoofdstukken gaan sterven.

Enfin ja, niet dat het veel uitmaakt, want de personages doen er niet toe. Iedereen gaat toch dood.

Een scholier zou er allerlei “interessante” thema's in kunnen terugvinden, van parallellen met de Bijbel, het Aards Paradijs, Adam en Eva, yada yada. Op school zou er ongetwijfeld een “boeiende” discussie kunnen zijn met vragen over moraliteit, maatschappij, bla die bla. Een leraar zou mij wellicht kunnen uitleggen waar precies de “satire” in dit “satirisch meesterwerk” zit.

Ik zit niet op school. Ik vond dit een rotslecht, door en door slecht, inslecht boek.

 

Classic Vonnegut. Not his best book, but still highly readable.

I wanted to like this book, but it just moved soooo sloooow. I made it about a third of the way through, and they are still in the damn hotel! Most of it is just forshadowing, either of what will happen to these specific people or of what will happen to the human race a million years in the future.