Cronosisma

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

È il 13 febbraio 2001, quando un cronosisma, ovvero un terremoto temporale,riporta la terra e i suoi abitanti dieci anni indietro. Ma anche davanti a questa opportunità di riutilizzare il proprio libero arbitrio si riafferma l'impossibilità per l'uomo di essere migliore. Tutti ripetono le stesse azioni, rifanno gli stessi errori, pronunciano perfino le stesse parole escontano le stesse pene. La sorte dell'umanità non si può dunque cambiare perché è la natura stessa dell'uomo che non può essere modificata. Tra romanzo e autobiografia, Vonnegut fa una critica tragicomica della società contemporanea.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Classics, Humor, Time Travel, Literature, Novels

219 pages, Paperback

First published September 22, 1997

About the author

Kurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.

He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.

After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.

His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.

Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Reviews

[Lyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun, rambling visit with cantankerous old Uncle Kurt.

As with most of his works, it is not so much what he writes, as how he writes it. He is funny. He is amusing and entertaining.

Here's the thing: It's about a timequake, where the world goes back 10 years and everyone and everything re-lives the past ten years all over again.

Listen: Kurt is too slick, this is an allegory about how our society will re-live our past, history will repeat itself because we are too stupid and apathetic to make a change.

Imagine!

All that and Kilgore Trout. Loved it!

[J.L. Sutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Many people need desperately to receive this message: 'I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. You are not alone..”



I was intrigued by the concept of Kurt Vonnegut's last novel: a 'timequake' beginning on February 13, 2001 rewinds the clock back to 1991. It's maddening, of course. Everyone must live those years again, exactly as they'd done before, all the while knowing what will happen, but unable to change anything. When people go from living in a continuous state of deja vu to being able to exercise free will, things go even further off the rails, like pileups at the bottom of the escalator. Front and center in this novel is Vonnegut's alter-ego, Kilgore Trout, as well as Vonnegut himself, who narrates the book. With Vonnegut providing specific and often poignant details about his life, family and relationships, as well as his views and interactions with said alter-ego, Timequake veers more toward autobiography than novel. And for Vonnegut this works!

Though the timequake is a frame for Kilgore and Vonnegut, this device made me think about how I would react to one of these timequakes (starting with 1991 to 2001). Even with so much to look forward to, could I be happy knowing all that would happen in the rewind? Would any rewind really be satisfying? The conceit that people have free will is explored when the timequake ends and don't really seem to exercise free will. Even though Kilgore Trout doesn't believe in free will, like a Paul Revere of the space-time continuum, he announces its return. It's an interesting image that allows Vonnegut to enter into a dialogue with 'American patriot' Trout about free will and humanity. Even more interesting, it feels like you are witnessing the last words of both men's long cantankerous lives or a moving on as both men wave farewell to who and what had been important to them. And then there is the clambake at the end of the journey,

I especially recommend this novel to fans of Kilgore Trout. This is a satisfying, entertaining and thought provoking novel! 4.25 stars

“In real life as in grand opera, arias only make hopeless situations worse.”

[Darwin8u · Rating 3 out of 5]

“In real life, as in Grand Opera, arias only make hopeless situations worse.”
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Timequake



Timequake was one of the first books my wife ever gave me. I don't know why it took me so long to read. I WAS a huge fan of Vonnegut 20 years ago when we first got married and I loved my wife. Clearly, I at age 23 I wasn't a fan of Vonnegut enough or trusted my wife's taste in books enough. I think I was just fearful Vonnegut was just mailing a final novel in. This was one of the last things he published, and I think it was his last novel (I might check this and find out I was wrong, it happens).

Anyway, I think all three of us were right. My wife was beautifully right in buying me Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt Vonnegut was right in writing it. I was right in waiting. I wasn't ready for this book. I'm now 20 years closer to death. I am now a father to two pimply teenagers who are sleeping tonight waiting for their parents to pretend still they are Santa and bring them goodies on Christmas morning. We are all pretending the best we can. We are all making the best of this short spin on Earth. I am now in a place where I can functionally GET the older Vonnegut better. I can get better his take on free will, money, morality, and art.

Timequake isn't a great novel, but it has absolutely brilliant parts. I love its lines and sentences better than I liked the book. It has a fantastic message about extended family and friends and community that I absolutely adored. It has so many good lines (yes, I said that before, but now I'm going to pull back the curtain):

"Only when free will kicked in again could they stop running obstacle courses of their own construction."

"Let us be perfectly frank for a change. For practically everybody, the end of the world can’t come soon enough."

"I define a saint as a person who behaves decently in an indecent society."

"...when things were really going well we should be sure to notice it."

“Pictures are famous for their humanness, and not for their pictureness.”

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I just read Galapagos, one of Vonnegut’s finest novels, and Timequake is not in that club. I, as with most Vonnegut fans, am perfectly content reading Vonnegut write about the phone book or fleas or jazz. His rambling is like music to our ears. But this book is not one of the best of his books. Not the best or most original rambling from him. Though one occasion for the book becomes the death of Kurt’s dear brother Bernard. One attraction here is that both guys are science guys who are funny. Well, Timquake meanders from topic to topic, and isn’t really a novel, it’s a series of reflections and one-liners, but I still was mildly entertained, maybe 2.5, and here’s some stuff I liked:

On play and invention: “Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!”

On books: “I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.”

“But by accident, not by cunning calculation, books, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our minds and souls, in a spiritual adventure I would be very sorry for my grandchildren not to know about.”

On bombs: “[Andrei Sakharov] won his Nobel in 1975 for demanding a halt to the testing of nuclear weapons. He, of course, had already tested his. His wife was a pediatrician! What sort of person could perfect a hydrogen bomb while married to a child-care specialist? What sort of physician would stay married to a mate that cracked?
"Anything interesting happen at work today, honeybunch?"
"Yes. My bomb is going to work just great. And how are you doing with that kid with chicken pox?”

On the human race’s apparent desire to commit collective suicide: “So it is not one whit mysterious that we poison the water and air and topsoil, and construct ever more cunning doomsday devices, both industrial and military. Let us be perfectly frank for a change. For practically everybody, the end of the world can't come soon enough.”

On equality and democracy and Eugene Debs: “I still quote Eugene Debs (1855–1926), late of Terre Haute, Indiana, five times the Socialist Party’s candidate for President, in every speech: “While there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” In recent years, I’ve found it prudent to say before quoting Debs that he is to be taken seriously. Otherwise many in the audience will start to laugh. They are being nice, not mean, knowing I like to be funny. But it is also a sign of these times that such a moving echo of the Sermon on the Mount can be perceived as outdated, wholly discredited horsecrap. Which it is not.”

[Велислав Върбанов · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐️

„Времетръс“ е много хубав и трогателен роман! Вонегът по въздействащ начин е поднесъл шантава история за десетгодишно дежавю в края на миналия век, чрез която отправя към читателите своите чудесни хуманни послания. Книгата несъмнено притежава тягостна атмосфера, но също така е доста забавно четиво. Като цяло напомня на стойностна пиеса, навявайки едновременно тъжно и весело настроение, както и разнообразни морални поуки...




„Сред най-важните за мен сътворени от човека божествени откровения са театралните пиеси. Траут ги наричаше „изкуствени времетръси“.
Той казваше: „Преди човекът да научи, че в природата съществуват времетръси, той вече ги бе изобретил“. Това е истина. Актьорите знаят много добре всичко, което ще кажат или направят, и как ще се развият нещата, за добро или лошо, още когато завесата се вдигне преди сцена първа на първо действие. Въпреки това нямат избор и трябва да се държат така, сякаш бъдещето е неизвестно.“

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot like Groundhog Day...interesting questions raised about the nature of time and space. All I need say is that this is KV take on time travel (TT); that alone made me want to read this book. Some very interesting twists here; I always like to read how different authors handle TT - even if it repeats itself.

[Tom Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Timequake strikes me as less a novel than a loose autobiography with embellishments. And it's often quite a bummer, though more than a couple lines made me laugh. There's some frank and honest reflections on life and free will, which are sharp and zany in such a way as could only have been composed by Vonnegut, an irascible old codger. The whole structure is thin, almost to the point of seeming frail: he tosses out pitch after pitch for hypothetical stories, alluding to a first draft of the same book we're reading currently, while drifting back and forth from his own life to his fictional creations. I doubt anyone else could make this work so charmingly.

3.5 stars. Certain observations and parables are quite resonant, offering intriguing considerations about free will and the often baffling state of affairs we find ourselves in as humans groping around for agency while living in what appears to be a sometimes strangely semi-automated, deterministic world. Other parts are underdeveloped, leaving me wanting much more. Altogether I feel this book is best recommended strictly to Vonnegut completionists, and to them only after having read all his other stuff first.

[Kirstine · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an odd mix of fiction and autobiography. Narrated by the author himself (who is not fictional), while relying on stories and quotations from the old science fiction author Kilgore Trout (who is). There are fake stories, true stories, and all of them will tell you something about being human, in all its terrible glory.

“Extenuating circumstance to be mentioned on Judgment Day: We never asked to be born in the first place.”

The universe happened upon the same question that hits us all, often for no particular reason and out of nowhere: What the hell am I supposed to do with myself? Do I continue expanding or do I quit and start over? In its understandable confusion and crisis it shrinks a bit and sends everyone back 10 years, forcing everyone to relive every moment, fully aware of having done it all before, but incapable of changing anything.

A nightmare really (“and they have to relive the 90s” I say, not knowing if the 90s really were awful, because I was a baby and then a child for all of it, Ting-a-ling! I once asked someone, though, what it was like being young in the 90s and he said "it was certainly ugly" referring to the fashion, so it probably wasn't all that great), but it makes for good storytelling.

Of course, a timequake is entirely unfeasible and would never occur, except it does every day of our lives. Humans are all too good at living in the past, reliving painful or humiliating memories, or being nostalgic for beautiful moments that are no more. That’s our timequake, and we are completely incapable of changing a thing that has happened. Reliving it too much, however, will freeze you in your present moment, because you forget that right now, you have the absolute power, you have your free will, to make every moment something you might not hate reliving.

I read this book and suddenly realized that if I had to relive the past 10 years of my life, it'd probably suck 80 percent of the time and I’d come out of it traumatized. But I can’t change a single second, so it’s best to just move on, and try to be the best I can be for the rest of my life.

Casting the ridiculous and brilliant Kilgore Trout as the hero of the story, the ideal of who we should try to be should this particular event ever occur, is a little bit genius. No one can be Trout, obviously, as he’s entirely fictional, and frankly I don’t think anyone wants to be him, but I do want to be like him.

“’The main thing about van Gogh and me,’ said Trout, ‘is that he painted pictures that astonished him with their importance, even though nobody else thought they were worth a damn and I write stories that astonish me, even though nobody else thinks they’re worth a damn. How lucky can you get?’”

The Timequake, however, plays a small role in the book. It is the frame, yes, the story we return to, but mostly this is a collection of stories from Vonnegut’s life and Kilgore Trout’s arsenal of oddball short stories. With his usual wit and round-a-bout way of saying anything, Vonnegut dishes up some striking social commentary. I’m continuously surprised by how achingly humane he is, making his observations all the more salient, because they come from a place of compassion and honesty.

I kept coming back to this one quote from a song by Say Anything, it goes:

“I guess that everyone includes me
and that’s why I’m a humanist”

If anyone, Vonnegut embodies that saying, at least in this particular book.

The song is called Hate Everyone. In a way, that is also very fitting.

Sure, “being alive is a crock of shit”, but also “I am eternally grateful for my knack of finding in great books, some of them very funny books, reason enough to feel honored to be alive, no matter what else might be going on.”

Thank you for such a book.

[صان · Rating 3 out of 5]

یکی از عجیب‌ترین رمان‌ها!

می‌شه گفت که کل رمان مثل یک سخنرانی بود. مثل یک معاشرت بود. حرف زدنِ نویسنده از چیزهای مختلف و جلو بردنِ آهسته‌ی یک خط داستانی.
اما پر بود از داستان و خرده‌پیرنگ و نقل‌قول و نصیحت و حرف و حرف که پشت سر هم میومدن. از لحاظ کلاژ بودنش می‌شه گفت که حسابی پست‌مدرن بود.
خط داستانیِ اصلی بسیار کمرنگ بود. حرف‌های ونه‌گوت هم طوری بود که گوشه‌هایی‌ش رو توی کتاب‌های دیگه‌ش شنیده بودی. مثل اکثر کتاب‌هاش البته.
دوتا جوک خوب هم تعریف می‌کرد :))

کتاب رو به یک علاقمند به ونه‌گوت پیشنهاد می‌کنم. اما نه کسی که بخواد اولین کتابش رو از این نویسنده بخونه.

[Kemper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm suprised that I found some of Vonnegut's later, less talked about books as enjoyable as some of the classic ones. But I enjoyed Bluebeard, Hocus Pocus and Timequake just as much as Slaughterhouse 5, Cat's Cradle, Mother Night or Breakfast of Champions.

Even though this technically isn't the last Vonnegut work, it's obvious that he was thinking of it as his swan song in fiction, and it's a near-perfect farewell.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daily Vonnegut – Day 12.

Actually delightful at times, and rambling digressions at others. I think there is a lot of heart here. This is all about free will vs. determinism, and it’s not necessarily foreign to what Vonnegut has talked about before. In retrospect, you can clearly tell that his energy was at a low. Even less cohesion than usual, but I really enjoyed the moments where the narrator was looking back on his life and being painfully candid.

[Ian "Marvin" Graye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timeless Impression

If this isn't nice, what is?

Kiss Me Again
By Kilgore Trout

Some people think that science fiction doesn't give an author much opportunity to write about herself.

Whether or not this is true, I thought I might tell you a little about my family, if not much about me and my role in it.

Before I start, I should warn you that I do not propose to discuss my love life. Not that there's much to tell you about anyway.

That said, I still can't get over how women are shaped, especially their butts and boobs. Dicks are nothing in comparison, believe me.

That's enough about me. Let's talk about my parents. Both my father and my mother were criminals, though only my father went to prison. My mother's only crime was to let my father ejaculate in her birth canal. I don't know how many times this happened, but I assume that I am the product of one occasion.

Likewise, my father only committed one crime, though, unlike my mother, he didn't repeat it.

My father shot my mother when I was only twelve years old. I don't know why or whether it had anything to do with my age at the time. My grandparents, bless them, thought of me as a precocious and slightly annoying child. But that's no reason for your father to kill your mother. Procreation isn't meant to be a crime between husband and wife. They can't send you to jail, just because you're infected with progeny.

My father was the famous ornithologist, Professor Raymond Trout, of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. My mother was a housewife and therefore less famous than my father (until her death, and perhaps even then). However, I only discovered when I turned eighteen that she was also a poet.

I didn't learn this from my father. I learned it from my mother's sister, my aunt, to whom my mother had entrusted all her verse. She used to send each poem off to my aunt whenever she wrote a letter to her. Why she sent them to my aunt, I don't know, because she never finished school and absolutely hated poetry, like most normal people. So she never kept the poems my mother sent her.

She did remember one of her poems, though, when I asked her:

Woman or not,
You'll notice it,
Being alive is
A crock of shit.

It mightn't amount to a hill of beans as far as poetry goes, but you have to agree with the sentiment, especially having regard to the cause of her demise.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, my mother was beautiful as well. Before he shot her, my father was always trying to kiss her and take her off to their bedroom. Most often, she would put me in my bed and kiss me on the forehead, so that I'd go to sleep first. Sometimes, she'd giggle like one of the girls at school and go in with my father straight away. Sometimes, she turned away and ignored him, which made him angry, though I didn't realise he'd get so angry he'd want to shoot her.

What is it about women that makes men want to kill them? Men are jerks. Women are psychotic. I suppose.

When I asked my aunt why she thought my father had killed my mother, she replied:

"There is no way a beautiful woman can live up to what she looks like for any appreciable length of time."

She might have been right. Anyway, it still makes me sad that my mother will never kiss me again.

Kurt Vonnegut on Kilgore Trout

"That is what [Kilgore] Trout was, too, in all he wrote: gaily mournful."




SOUNDTRACK:

David Kilgour - "You Forget"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC49c...

The Clean - "Anything Could Happen"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_niU...

[Liam O'Leary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Video Review on YouTube

Most of my thoughts are in the video above or on instagram, here are some other things. GoodReads reviews are now becoming more of my book diary than any other output.

This was my first buddy read and it was quite nice to have someone to talk to about the themes. However, the story is such a jumble and has barely any plot, which means that we had to talk more about the themes than the actual plot. I mean to say this would be A TERRIBLE book club read.

Also, having read Timequake I'm now wondering whether what we value in Kurt Vonnegut's style — Kilgore Trout, his anecdotes, and his "broken paragraph structure" — are really a PTSD-like manifestation of war memories. Are we valuing Kurt's coping mechanisms in writing? Finding entertainment in his healing? And that makes me wonder whether the same is true of all fiction. Are we finding comfort in reading therapeutic exercises of strangers? I think it's a more pertinent question for Timequake than any other book, as contains more of his history and reflections than any other novel I've read. At least with other Vonnegut novels you might like them for the story alone, for instance The Sirens of Titan or Cat's Cradle. This very much feels like a story with only an ending, no beginning or middle, that mostly takes place in the mind of the author.

Final thought. When I first read Breakfast of Champions I thought to myself it would be really cool if there was just one book with only Kilgore Trout's best Scifi stories. They were always so wacky and fun, I thought that a book only containing them would be funny even if it did not make a lot of sense. This is what I hoped Timequake would be, but Kilgore Trout in this book bizarrely seems like Kurt himself, and he doesn't tell his own stories. I wonder whether in this last book Kurt wanted to tell the reader, 'yes so Kilgore was actually a fictional version of me', and unite himself with this fictional character of his. I would have preferred my original goal, but it does at least seem to resolve a recurring theme in his stories — who or what does Kilgore Trout stand for? My answer to that based on my video review is 'forgiveness'.


—Original Thoughts—

Please, for goodness sake, do not read this first. I have read 11 of Kurt Vonnegut's novels, and this is far and away the worst. This will only be passable for established fans.

Review TBC.

[Ali Book World · Rating 3 out of 5]

طبق تحقیقاتی که انجام دادم (چون این اولین کتابی بود که از این نویسنده خوندم)، کلیگور تروت یکی از کاراکترهای اصلی چندتا از کتاب‌های نویسنده است که شغلش هم نویسندگی‌ست و بیشتر نوشته‌هاش هم داستان‌هاس کوتاهند، البته خانه به دوش هم هست. ژانر کتابهایی که این کاراکتر مینویسه علمی-تخیلی اند اما بلافاصله بعد از پایانِ نوشتن، همه رو دور میریزه. چرا؟ چون اعتقاد داره داستانهاش مال خودشن و لازم نمیبینه که کسی دیگه بخونشون...

و اما حالا توی این کتاب، شخصیت کلیگورت دوست کورت ونه گات (نویسنده‌ی کتاب) میشه... این دو نفر باهمدیگه روایت داستان رو پیش میبرن. در ر��ز سیزده فوریه ۲۰۰۱ در دنیا زلزله‌ای در زمان رخ میده و همه‌چیز به ده سال قبل برمیگرده. الان همه‌ی مردم در ذهن‌های خودشون زندانی‌ شده‌اند و به اجبار باید دوباره این ده سال رو زندگی کنند و البته هیچکس نمیتونه هیچ تغییری در وقایع ایجاد بکنه و...

باید بگم که داستان این اینکتاب اصلا ساده و روون روایت نشده، خیلی عجیبه. سخت‌خوانه، مخ و مغز و روح خواننده رو در هم تاب میده و همه چیز رو باهم قاطی میکنه. من که خیلی خیلی گیج شدم اما به شدت جذابه. به این دلیل جذابه که ایده‌ش نابه و بدون اینکه ریشه‌ی داستان از دست نویسنده در بره، پیچش‌های بیش از حد و عجیبی به کتابش داده.

یک خوبی که داره اینه که زیاد طولانی نیست و به اینکه گیج کننده‌ست اما به مرور نوع نوشتار داستان دستتون میاد و خیلی منظورها رو متوجه میشید ولی باز هم تا آخرش همه چیز اوکی نمیشه، انگار از قصد اینکار رو کرده.

خلاصه اینکه کتاب فوق‌العاده عجیبیه و همه پسند نیست، فقط کسانی که از این مدل کتابهای عجیب خوششون میاد و میتونن داستانهایی که تم علمی و تخیلی دارن بخونن و بیش از حد درگیرتون بکنه که پیچش‌هاش رو حل بکنید، برید سراغش وگرنه اصلا پیشنهاد نمیکنم.

[Art · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate to say this because I love Vonnegut. Cat's Crade and Slaughterhouse were pure genuis - satire at it's best. I also liked Sirens and Breakfast of Champions even though they were not of the calibre of his best works.

However, I am starting to fear that most of his other books are a waste of time. I think people read them only because they love Vonnegut and they desperately want to experience again the simple delight of discovering books that can shake you and engulf you.

I did not enjoy Vonnegut's short stories (much as I wanted to) and I had to give up on Timequake. That's right. Put it to rest before completing it. At some point in his life, Vonnegut appears to have stumbled upon a formula; a superbly quirky and poignent style and a set of peculiar characters to go along. Miserably pathetic, gloriously mournful, wonderous people, dredging through the absurdities of life. But it is still sorely disappointing when you see the same themes and characters repeated in his other books. Thinly veiled, these books are suspiciously like rejected drafts of his more successful novels or tired attempts to re-create magic.

Something interesting I noticed in Timequake was Vonnegut's very 1950s view of women and his hand-waving simplification of their personalities and desires. This was only alluded to in his other books but starkly stated in Timequake. I don't think he intended to be chauvinistic or mean as he appears to have been a nice and sweet man in real life. But it was too late. Already jaded at this pivotal juncture in Timequake, I could now put it down with good reason. And shake my head. Oh, Kurt. Tsk tsk. Rest in peace, and thanks for the cat.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to give this one 3 stars, but it's Vonnegut, one of my favorite authors, so I give it 4. I cannot give it 5 stars as I would give "Slaughterhouse- Five" or "Cat's Cradle." It's not even much of a story. We have the return of science fiction schlockmeister Kilgore Trout, which is wonderful. We have the timequake occurring in the near future of when the book was published in 1997--it occurs on February 13, 2001. All it does is cause a reset back to 1991 and everyone has to live the ten-year period over again. Not too bad and I could do it-- but without the repeat of the horrendous 2000 election. Anyway, this book is more autobiographical than anything as Vonnegut reflects on family and friends and relationships. And, being a Vonnegut book, there are some truly hilarious moments. And some great quotes. Here's one I picked out: “But by accident, not by cunning calculation, books, because of their weight and texture, and because of their sweetly token resistance to manipulation, involve our hands and eyes, and then our minds and souls, in a spiritual adventure I would be very sorry for my grandchildren not to know about.”
Vonnegut was born on November 11, 1922 ( on an Armistice Day- the day "the war to end all war" ended, in 1918) and died on April 11, 2007. "Timequake" is his last novel.

[mohamad jelvani · Rating 3 out of 5]

بر من ثابت شد که هیچ یک از نوشته های ونه گات سلاخ خانه شماره پنج نمی شود
زمان لرزه را در ادبیات پست مدرن دسته بندی کرده اند
روایت های تو در تو همراه با فاصله گذاری و دخالت دادن زندگی شخصی و ارجاعات درون متنی و برون متنی متعدد
و استفاده از زبان طنزآمیز
از ویژگی های این نوع ادبیات است
که در زمان لرزه به وفور استفاده شده
هر چند نهایتاً نفهمیدم که نویسنده چه هدفی را دنبال می کند
و چندان از داستان سر در نیاوردم
اما خواندنش لذت بخش بود

[Boris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Кърт Вонегът прави дните по-живи и щастливи. Нищо по-малко от 5 звезди за този пореден негов шедьовър.

[John Hatley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a highly entertaining example of Kurt Vonnegut‘s writing. Kilgore Trout has already become unforgettable and a legend to me.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've not read a lot of Mr. Vonnegut's works. . .just those assigned in class, and I will have to read those again to remind myself of their points and purposes.

Meanwhile this one, Timequake, seems like a big wrap-up to all the things he might have wanted to say in a book but hadn't yet. I had a difficult time holding on to the thread of this tale, but every once in awhile a phrase or sentence stands alone in the body of the text and feels very amusing and out of place. Like the time you were at a funeral and saw something funny and wanted to share it with the person next to you and laugh out loud, but no. It's a funeral.

This is certainly a book that definitely left me with the feeling that I do not have as good a grip on what I think I know as much as I think I do. OR I'm brilliant to recognize the absurdity herein. Meh. Who knows?

For that level of untetheredness, I can't go beyond 3 stars, and that still is me on the fence.

[Danger · Rating 5 out of 5]

2ND READ-THROUGH: There’s a lot going on here. Ruminations on life and regret, but strangely enough, Vonnegut’s trademark “cynicism” doesn’t quite sound so cynical to me. Dare I say, there’s a lot of hope and gratitude contained in this - a book that functions like an autobiography moreso than the novel within the novel it’s (marginally) attempting to tell. Suffice it to say, NO ONE writes like this, or this well, or this deeply, in the way Vonnegut does. This book had me laughing and tearing up, in turn. Just spectacular!

[JSou · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect last novel from one of my very favorite authors. This is the first time I've re-read this since Vonnegut passed, which made this book even more amazing. I've been yelling, "I FRY MINE IN BUTTER!" all week now, making many people think I'm even more "special" than they had originally assumed.

[Pooriya · Rating 3 out of 5]

قدیس کسی است که در یک جامعه مبتذل، با شرافت زندگی می‌کند.‌

[notgettingenough · Rating 3 out of 5]

Come the half way point or so in this book I was rather indignantly thinking how wrong all the harsh criticism of it is. As usual Vonnegut was making me liberally annotate as I wrote. Here: Yes! There: Haha! Somewhere else: Ting-a-ling!!! By the end, however, it was a chore. Those explanation points! Those ting-a-lings!!! I wanted to get right into the very paper of the book and kill them!!!!

Maybe it’s worth reading as a piece on how writers suffer when they can’t write – or think they can’t write, since obviously they can.

But it is worth reading for the insights into life.

They say the first thing to go when you’re old is your legs or your eyesight. It isn’t true. The first thing to go is parallel parking.

It is worth reading for his regret,

rest here: https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...

[Vaso · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 αστέρια

[Stewart Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

In honor of having finally finished my favorite author's very last novel, here's a list of what I've learned from his books:

Player Piano: We should control the machines, not the other way around.

The Sirens of Titan: Life is an adventure, and it's all about being happy.

Mother Night: Little people can get sucked into big things. That doesn't make it alright.

Cat's Cradle: We're going to blow ourselves up!

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: Money is God to dumb people. Family is God to smart people.

Slaughterhouse Five: It's better to lose your mind than go to war.

Breakfast of Champions: The world is hilarious and unpredictable. Take a look around!

Slapstick: If we all treated each other as family, the world would be a better place.

Jailbird: The government makes no sense, and neither does anything else.

Deadeye Dick: Fate isn't always pretty.

Galapagos: We have adapted and evolved into monsters.

Bluebeard: Art is beautiful, and a great way to screw around.

Hocus Pocus: We all need to get over ourselves already!

Timequake: Humans are so special, which is why it's such a shame that we keep blowing ourselves up.


I still have a lot more Vonnegut to read, between his short stories, essays, and letters, but it's sad to know that I'm done with his novels. I never thought I'd say this, but I might just read them again someday.

[Adam Floridia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has the distinct honor of being my favorite KV book!

On re-reading 8/18/15 in preparation for English 298: The Novels of Kurt Vonnegut (which will probably be canceled due to low enrollment):

After a decade, re-reading this same novel, as if in a timequake, I can only repeat what my thoughts were the first time I read it: Wow, this is one of the best book's I've ever read. It's one of the best examples of postmodernism. It's one of the best examples of the value of art. It's one of the most touching, beautiful, meaningful, sad, and funny pieces of literature ever.

Read it!


Now I expect 4-7 pages on one of the following topics:

1) How does this novel develop/answer/culminate a theme or style from his other book(s) we've read?

2) What does this book have to say about Art, Freewill, and The Purpose of Life?


On re-reading 5/11/21for English 298: The Novels of Kurt Vonnegut:
Still my favorite because of the voice and heart despite the biting criticisms and often cynical views of humanity because, well, I get it.

[The Frahorus · Rating 3 out of 5]

L'universo ha una crisi di autostima e decide di interrompere la sua espansione e tornare indietro di dieci anni (il cronosisma, appunto) facendo così rivivere agli esseri umani gli ultimi dieci anni e nessuno può cambiare le proprie scelte, ripentendo così anche gli stessi errori.

Vonnegut ci lascia con questo umoristico e satirico romanzo, visto che sarà la sua ultima opera che scriverà. Ma non c'è solo una storia di fantascienza, bensì il libro contiene anche aneddoti personali dell'autore, sempre raccontati con la sua lucida e mordace ironia.

State a sentire: siamo sulla terra per cazzeggiare. Non credete a quelli che vi dicono che non è così!

Le donne sono tutte psicotiche. Gli uomini sono tutti coglioni.

"Ancora e per sempre: perché dannarsi [a scrivere, n.d.r.]? Ecco la mia risposta: molta gente ha un disperato bisogno di ricevere questo messaggio: «Io sento e penso quanto te, mi preoccupo per molte delle cose di cui ti preoccupi tu, anche se la maggior parte della gente non se ne preoccupa. Non sei solo»."

Sicuramente un libro insolito, che non ti aspetti, dove l'autore in un certo senso ti parla faccia a faccia, davanti a una buona birra.

[britt_brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ting-a-ling, motherfucker.” - Kilgore Trout

This semi-autobiographical “stew” is kind of bonkers, but I liked it. A must read for established fans.

[Nada Elshabrawy · Rating 4 out of 5]

مراجعة قصيرة للرواية ومقاربة مع روايات أخرى على قناة دودة كتب

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xl9t...