Galapagos
by Kurt Vonnegut
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Read in February, 2002
recommends it for:
everyone
It will be interesting to see what becomes of the legacy of Kurt Vonnegut now that he is dead. Many great authors don't receive the recognition they deserve until after they have taken the giant step to the other side, but Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five was being taught in high schools across
America while the author was still alive so I guess it can be said that he was a legend in his own time. Maybe his appeal will diminish with age, but I kind of doubt it. I consider h...more
America while the author was still alive so I guess it can be said that he was a legend in his own time. Maybe his appeal will diminish with age, but I kind of doubt it. I consider h...more
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Read in August, 2007
I've read a few of Vonnegut's novels now, and I can't get enough. I love his writing style, his dark humor, and his incredible imagination. He has this way of making his bizarre visions of the future seem perfectly plausible, and makes me worry for our future and laugh at the same time.
Galapagos is told from the point of view of a person a million years after 1986. He relates the story of events in 1986 that led to the remnants of all of humanity being situated on one tiny island a millio...more
Galapagos is told from the point of view of a person a million years after 1986. He relates the story of events in 1986 that led to the remnants of all of humanity being situated on one tiny island a millio...more
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Read in September, 2007
This is without a doubt the worst book I have ever read. I wonder after reading this, how much Vonnegut had to pay the editors and press to even deem this book publishable. This book fails on every level, as a political warning against nuclear weapons, in character development, book narration (this book was narrated by a ghost one million years in the future...Kurt probably consulted a kindergartner for this), book structure, simple entertainment and more. If Kurt Vonnegut was going to try...more
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recommends it for:
someone with time to waste
Once again, I have to wonder how this book ever was chosen for publication. Maybe the editor didn't read it to the end.
It was dreary, and a bit jerky, from the beginning. Told from the perspective of a ghost one million years in the future? What, was this premise picked out by a 5 year old?
So, I gave it a chance. Okay, there are these people, fated to converge on a trip to the Galapagos islands. Some with noble goals, some not. There is a worldwide threat. Oh no, now the trip is cancele...more
It was dreary, and a bit jerky, from the beginning. Told from the perspective of a ghost one million years in the future? What, was this premise picked out by a 5 year old?
So, I gave it a chance. Okay, there are these people, fated to converge on a trip to the Galapagos islands. Some with noble goals, some not. There is a worldwide threat. Oh no, now the trip is cancele...more
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Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
fans of vonnegut
good tale, simple tale. About the end of the world and the future of the world. The narrator is a ghost and it is in retrospect over a million years or so, it spends most of its time with about a dozen or so people that start humans as they become from themselves on an island in the galapogos and what brought them there. I liked that idea. the ghost knew so much just from seeing so much. By the way, the ghost was the son of Kilgore Trout for anyone who knows that guy. It makes many reference...more
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Read in January, 1999
recommends it for:
everyone
I know a lot of people who think that Breakfast of Champions or Cat's Cradle or Slaughter House Five are the best ever Vonnegut books, but those are the ones they probably were forced to read in school. I think those are all quite clever, but when I read through Galapagos the first time, I thought it was so much more t...more
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
pessimists
This book is like a child who thinks the one joke he knows gets funnier every time he tells it. Vonnegut's one joke is that humans, with their big brains, mess everything up. They'd be happier with smaller brains, no hands, and a diet chiefly consisting of raw fish. Ha. Ha.
Unless you are the sort of misanthrope who takes a grim glee in reading about the end of the world as we know it and the subsequent devolution of humanity, I wouldn't recommend this book. Even if Vonnegut's dim view of hum...more
Unless you are the sort of misanthrope who takes a grim glee in reading about the end of the world as we know it and the subsequent devolution of humanity, I wouldn't recommend this book. Even if Vonnegut's dim view of hum...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
pessimists
Quick, moderately entertaining piece of apocalyptic proportions by a recently deceased writer I am starting to investigate. Somewhat humorous, it is the story of a "gilligan's island" type group of people who prematurely set out on a planned cruise to the galapagos while war and pestilence simultaneously destroys all of mankind (save our heros, who now unknowingly forge forward on the galapagos islands as the sole human survivors on planet earth). For me the most thought provoking as...more
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Read in January, 2001
recommends it for:
fans of Kurt Vonnegut (and probably them alone)
Just finished with Kurt Vonnegut's meandering History of the Human Race from AD 1986 to AD 1,001,986 for the second time. And though more enjoyable this round through, Galápagos still felt to be nothing more than 200 pages of prologue followed by 100 pages of epilogue. An interesting venture to be sure, but I can't help feeling that potential fans might be turned away if this was their first taste of Vonnegut. This would be a sore state: for a potential fan to decide against liking Vonnegut bef...more
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recommended to Mike by:
Josh Avin
I've read a whole lot of Vonnegut. I can summate my general feeling toward his works as follows: it's an incredibly engaging and interesting read that you simply fly through, but over the course of a few days after finishing it the plot is all but totally forgotten, and the protagonist appears increasingly underdeveloped the more you think about it. So not expecting a Raskolnikov or Mersault from Vonnegut leads me to take his books at face value.
Galapogos, however, was different. The ch...more
Galapogos, however, was different. The ch...more
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Read in January, 1998
recommends it for:
dreamers, cynics
For many people, this is a lesser of the Vonnegut books. The giants 'Slaughterhouse Five' and 'Cat's Cradle' eclipse it. Perhaps because those are required reading, they charm me less. They go in the same category as The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye -- brilliant as they go, but ubiquitous.
This is more of a forgotten gem, and so I cherish it more. It's very Vonnegut in that it's unabashedly cynical, yet somehow hopeful. I love the bizarre meaning in his frank storytelling, and the amu...more
This is more of a forgotten gem, and so I cherish it more. It's very Vonnegut in that it's unabashedly cynical, yet somehow hopeful. I love the bizarre meaning in his frank storytelling, and the amu...more
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Read in April, 2003
I hated this book when I first read it in tenth grade, for about the same reason why I hated the Sierra Club when we went to visit and I saw a bumper sticker there about how we should all stop having babies.
I read it again a few years later and found it to be the best the best the best. One theme is that humans have evolved too far for our own good, in terms of both our intellectual capacities and our technological abilities. Of course it's Vonnegut so the solution is absurd, which may have str...more
I read it again a few years later and found it to be the best the best the best. One theme is that humans have evolved too far for our own good, in terms of both our intellectual capacities and our technological abilities. Of course it's Vonnegut so the solution is absurd, which may have str...more
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Read in November, 2007
Not quite as good as Slaughterhouse Five, but written with the same great imaginative verve, from the perspective of a ghost remembering the events of one milion years ago -- the 1980s -- when a financial crisis and a global epidemic combine to wipe out the world's human population, except for a small group of unlikely survivors who are stranded on Santa Rosalia and subsequently evolve into fish-like creatures with much smaller (and less troublesome) brains and speak only Kanka-bono, a language ...more
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Read in June, 2007
Oftentimes, we forget that we ourselves have a “culture”, in that the practices we engage in, the underlying assumptions in our value systems, are not universal but rather can appear very strange to someone from a different culture. Vonnegut takes this idea about a million years into the future and writes a novel commenting on human evolution over one million years going forward. In effect, he comically reflects on the strangeness of the complicated way we live our lives today. This book is ...more
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Read in January, 2001
I've read most all of the Vonnegut's at this point, and this is undoubtedly one of the best. An ironic look at evolution based on a twist to the Gilligan's island premise. Basically, a group travelers stranded on the islands are forced to breed to repopulate after some (i forget, honestly) travesty has befallen humanity.
The concept follows a familiar Vonnegut theme - that humans are too clever and emotional to be humane - hence evolution moves these island dwellers away from intellectual...more
The concept follows a familiar Vonnegut theme - that humans are too clever and emotional to be humane - hence evolution moves these island dwellers away from intellectual...more
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Read in January, 2006
As with most Vonnegut I've read, there's a mysterious disease that precludes me from remembering anything I've read. His literature is so disjointed and insane that there is no magnetism between its content and my brain. Nevetheless, I really liked this book -- possibly even more than Slaughterhouse Five and Cat's Cradle.
It's in an interesting tense: told as a story set in the present day, but from the viewpoint of a million years from now. Basically, a bunch of minor and seemingly unconnecte...more
It's in an interesting tense: told as a story set in the present day, but from the viewpoint of a million years from now. Basically, a bunch of minor and seemingly unconnecte...more
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Read in September, 2007
Galapagos is a very weird book. Vonnegut has a twisted mind and an interesting method for revealing his opinion. Obviously, he thinks that humans (in 1986 and I presume today as well) are too evolved for their own good. He develops his plot by telling us that in a million years humans have returned to a more natural state by losing our "big brains." In fact, he blames all of our societal problems on our "big brains." It took me a very long time to get through this book. It...more
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Read in April, 2007
recommends it for:
Kathleen
i loved the ideas vonnegut presents in this book. what would happen to humanity if everyone died/couldn't reproduce, but there were only a handful of people left? the narrator loves to say that all the problems in the world are caused by our big brains. the economic crisis in the book leads to mankind's downfall, but leon simply says that the problem only exists in their heads. it's all numbers that were made up by people.
darwin prevails and it really offends a lot of people. i think it...more
darwin prevails and it really offends a lot of people. i think it...more
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Read in May, 2007
Vonnegut gets better in retrospect, at least for me.
My favorite part:
"They needed lots of peace and quiet," said Roy, "and so do I, and so do you, I guess, and I'm sorry if I disturbed you. I wasn't doing anything a bird wouldn't do."
Some automatic device clicked in her big brain, and her knees felt weak, and there was a chilly feeling in her stomach. She was in love with this man.
They don't make memories like that anymore.
Leave it up to me to weed out the roman...more
My favorite part:
"They needed lots of peace and quiet," said Roy, "and so do I, and so do you, I guess, and I'm sorry if I disturbed you. I wasn't doing anything a bird wouldn't do."
Some automatic device clicked in her big brain, and her knees felt weak, and there was a chilly feeling in her stomach. She was in love with this man.
They don't make memories like that anymore.
Leave it up to me to weed out the roman...more
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Read in May, 2007
"Galapagos" is, as far as I can tell, when Kurt Vonnegut decided to become "Kurt Vonnegut." This book feels like an imperfect parody of Vonnegut's style. It's not _bad_, per se, it's just not very good. Narrated from 1 million years in the future, by Kilgore Trout's son, this book has flashes of real resonance, like when Leon Trout speaks of his time in Vietnam. All in all, however, the entire thing feels misanthropic in a way that definitely would have appealed to me back in...more
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book data (includes all editions)
avg rating (all editions): 3.83 (5176 ratings) avg rating (this edition): 3.83 (4924 ratings) number of reviews: 255popular shelves
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quote
"In the era of big brains, life stories could end up any which way. Look at mine."
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