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Timequake

3.68 of 5 stars 3.68 · rating details · 17,545 ratings · 703 reviews

According to science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout, a global timequake will occur in New York City on 13th February 2001. It is the moment when the universe suffers a crisis of conscience. Should it expand or make a great big bang? It decides to wind the clock back a decade to 1991, making everyone in the world endure ten years of deja-vu and a total loss of free will - not...more

Paperback, 219 pages

Published August 6th 1998 by Vintage Classics (first published 1997)

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Dec 19, 2009 Aerin rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir, americana

One thing that never fails to annoy me when authors take on the subject of The Meaninglessness Of Modern Life, is when they assert that, at some point in the past, life was not meaningless. That everyone would read books and discuss them, that everyone was intelligent and imaginative, and life was good and interesting. And then something happened (usually taken to mean: the television was invented), and now everyone is a slobbering idiot with horrible taste, and society is falling apart because...more

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May 21, 2009 Δx Δp ≥ ½ ħ htgkvkkviholmvobsvzighxofyyzmw rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: i-me-mine, i-am-the-walrus, a-day-in-the-life

Jika kata 'Humor Cerdas' didefinisikan sebagai humor yang dibuat oleh orang cerdas, diceritakan oleh orang cerdas, disampaikan dengan gaya yang cerdas serta orang yang menyimaknya akan menjadi cerdas, kira-kira menurut Anda, ada berapa jumlah buku di dunia yang memiliki humor cerdas?

Setau saya, jumlahnya hanya ada satu. dan buku ini yang paling layak disebut sebagai cerita 'humor cerdas'.

Ok, buku ini akan membuat otot perut dan otot alis pegal saat membacanya. Soalnya saat membaca buku ini kita...more

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Mar 07, 2008 Carolyn rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Serious Vonnegut fans

I've read a few Kurt Vonnegut books that I remember being fun reads, but I wouldn't say this was one of them. I'm aware that he's since passed and this was his last novel published. He mentioned that it was a story he had been working on for a decade, "piecemeal", eventually compressing bits of fiction together with autobiographical accounts interspersed (I felt like they outweighed the actual story). I think I needed to be more interested in the author to have appreciated this. He has a unique...more

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Apr 27, 2008 Liz rated it 4 of 5 stars

At first I didn't get into this book, and I had put it down and forgotten about it. Recently I spotted it on my bookshelf and, needing something new to read when I finished my last book, I grabbed Timequake. I read it mostly on the train thinking that would force me to get over the hump I couldn't overtake a couple years ago when I first tried to read it. I was surprised this time around that I had ever put it down. It's extremely witty; full of humor and beauty and saddness, but told in a refre...more

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Dec 07, 2007 Fredstrong rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: all-time-favorites

Unfortunately, it's been a while since I read Timequake, so I can only talk about the general trends I remember, rather than the specifics of plot, and character.

This is Vonnegut's last Novel, and he certainly goes out with a bang. The literary devices that Vonnegut uses throughout his catalogue are all utilized in Timequake with new force and life. Vonnegut regularly steps outside of the fiction to analyze the novel he is writing, and clue the reader into what he is thinking, who he is basing...more

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Dec 10, 2007 Art rated it 2 of 5 stars

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 Von...more

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Dec 26, 2007 Mazzeo rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: First Time Vonnegut Readers

This is Vonnegut’s bestseller and my least favorite. To be honest, I didn’t think I’d like it when I picked it up. Generally speaking if I love an author, I don’t like his/her bestseller. This book focuses largely on the autobiographical aspect of his writing, but does not provide the fictional counterpoint found in books like “Slaughterhouse Five.” While it is amusing, I found myself wanting more at various points in the book, and at other points I felt like I had already read the text. In the...more

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May 01, 2013 lisa rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first novel by Kurt Vonnegut that I have read. To be honest, I have no idea what made me pick up Timequake, but I’m sure it has something to do with my perception that Vonnegut is one of those authors I should read. This book has been on my bookshelf for several years now (how many, I have no idea, but it’s been awhile). I decided to try to read the book again, this time from start to finish. I was successful and did get to the end, but not because I was at all interested in the endi...more This is the first novel by Kurt Vonnegut that I have read. To be honest, I have no idea what made me pick up Timequake, but I’m sure it has something to do with my perception that Vonnegut is one of those authors I should read. This book has been on my bookshelf for several years now (how many, I have no idea, but it’s been awhile). I decided to try to read the book again, this time from start to finish. I was successful and did get to the end, but not because I was at all interested in the ending.

I’m getting ahead of myself, and that is likely because it’s time to summarize the plot, and I’m not exactly sure how to do that. Mostly because there really isn’t much of a plot to speak of, at least not what most readers recognize as a plot. On February 17, 2001, the entire world experienced a timequake, sending everyone to 1991 and forcing humans to relive the previous ten years of their lives. Vonnegut (who is both author and narrator) explains that the timequake occurred because the Universe was indecisive about whether or not it should keep expanding. The thing about the timequake is that free will has been completely erased—during the “rerun” everyone has to do the exact same thing they had done previously. Nothing can be altered or changed, and consequently apathy has set in. Kilgore Trout—the old science fiction writer who is one of Vonnegut’s characters—refers to that time as being on “autopilot”. When the timequake ends ten years later on the second February 13, 2001, everyone in the world experiences “Post-Timequake Apathy” or PTA. Humans have become so used to not having free will and living on autopilot, that they don’t care about anything and have no will to do anything. It takes the efforts of Kilgore Trout, through the mantra, “You were sick, but now you’re well again, and there’s work to do,” to wake everyone up, and the mantra comes to be known as the Kilgore Creed. Interestingly, this helps Vonnegut turn his isolated, man alone character into, if not a hero, then certainly an anti-hero.

The novel is clearly satire, and it takes aim at several topics. One such topic is the value of books and reading, particularly as opposed to the value of television. Vonnegut builds a thoughtful commentary upon what is at stake when books and the printed word give way to the medium of television as well as the digital age. Another topic that he targets is the value of extended families, and not just blood relations, but families in the sense of communities, and what is lost when an individual is not part of this kind of extended family. Indeed, part of the story as it concerns Kilgore Trout seems to be showing how he goes from being isolated to being part of a family. Still another focus of his satire is the division of wealth and those amendments he would make to the Constitution guaranteeing what he argues are basic human rights. There is also a compelling commentary upon religion and its value to the individual that I would not have expected to find in a Vonnegut novel. The “Post-Timequake Apathy” adds another layer to the satire and of course is intended to prompt the reader to think about his or her own apathy and attempt to shake his readers out of that apathy. He wants his readers to care. He wants his readers to believe that life is worth living, but that it takes participation from everyone in society to build a better society. Vonnegut’s novel succeeds in challenging the status quo and advocating for change. Indeed, if I were teaching this novel in one of my literature classes, I would highlight the ways in which Timequake uses the power that the form of the novel possesses to critique social and political structures of power.

Although I can appreciate the novel on the level of satire, and at the risk of alienating Vonnegut fans, I have to admit that the novel was a disappointing read for me. The first question I asked myself upon completing the novel was if all Vonnegut novels are like this? Slaughterhouse-Five is on my to-read list, but now I’m in no hurry to check it off. I don’t mind literature that uses satire to make social and political commentary; at the same time, I want my satire to have more of a story. Or perhaps what I should really say is that my expectations didn’t match up with what I got from the novel. I wasn’t expecting it to be semi-autobiographical, and I wasn’t expecting the first-person, almost diary-like narrative style that Vonnegut employs in the novel. As a narrator and character in his own story, Vonnegut has an engaging voice, but at no point in the novel was I really invested in the narrative. I finished reading the novel because my goal was to finish the book, not really because I cared all that much how it ended. Oddly, I don’t even think I had the hope that maybe I would start to like it.

As I said above, this is my first introduction to the Vonnegut canon of work. I will, someday, give Slaughterhouse-Five a try, and hope for a more favorable response, but someday won’t be coming anytime soon. On a five-star scale, Timequake receives only one-star from this reader, and that’s only because zero-stars isn’t an option.
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Apr 02, 2013 Kaitlin added it

As in his novel Breakfast of Champions, here Kurt inserts himself as a character, this time adding much more autobiography and trailing frequently into his personal musings on the modern world. As is typical, these comments are at turns critical and forgiving, always pacifistic, aesthetic, and in summation they are what I would consider rather wise.
Starting in the year 2001, the story goes, the Universe ceases to expand and instead contracts backward ten years to 1991. Vonnegut's familiar charac...more As in his novel Breakfast of Champions, here Kurt inserts himself as a character, this time adding much more autobiography and trailing frequently into his personal musings on the modern world. As is typical, these comments are at turns critical and forgiving, always pacifistic, aesthetic, and in summation they are what I would consider rather wise.
Starting in the year 2001, the story goes, the Universe ceases to expand and instead contracts backward ten years to 1991. Vonnegut's familiar character and alter-ego Kilgore Trout writes a memoir entitled "My Ten Years on Autopilot" to describe the situation. Apparently, all of humanity and nature played out exactly as it had the first time 1991-2001 occurred. People anticipated each event, good and bad, as it passed through a second time, but could exercise no free will to change any of life's ills for the better until time resumed.
Though many fall victim to a sort of catatonic sickness stemming from apathy after timequake, Trout continues his day as he would any other in his simple life. He sits in the homeless shelter where he lives and finishes writing an absurd short story. His monomaniacal writing keeps him conscious enough to see then see and hear the havoc wrought by PTA, "Post-Timequake Apathy," the catatonic disease, on those who were awake and in the process of critical decision-making when free will gets turned back on in the second 2001. And he thinks of just the right words to say to the sufferers.
"You were sick, but now you are well again. And there's work to be done."
Meanwhile, Vonnegut purges his personal sufferings by reliving them throughout the narrative. He discusses the deaths of his sister, her husband, their brother Bernard, and many of his friends, including his ex-wife, also the element of good fortune in his multifaceted career.
The book felt very conversational. The sequence of events was a bit convoluted, much as they were in Slaughterhouse or Breakfast of Champions. I mean I don't think I'd have liked the book if I hadn't discovered many of Vonnegut's ideas through his other novels first. But as a letter from Kurt to Katie, I enjoyed it very much. And I think the diversity of experiences he and his Indianapolis German-American intellectual family have had would appeal to most readers. Anyone with a bent for art, or references to hard science, or soft sciences, or hobos, or studies in motivation, or attempts at objective observation, or direct, short turns of phrase could come to enjoy this friend of mine.(less)

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Mar 18, 2013 Jacob rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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Dec 14, 2012 Sarah Goodwin rated it 4 of 5 stars

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Nov 17, 2012 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars

Originally published on my blog here in June 2001.

In 1997, Vonnegut imagined that on February 13, 2001 there would be a timequake; the universe would revert to its position about ten years earlier, and the decade would be repeated exactly as before, with the massively important difference that everybody would remember what happened the first time around, but be powerless to change anything.

Vonnegut's novel is not a narrative of the ten year rerun. It is, instead, a series of commentaries on it,...more Originally published on my blog here in June 2001.

In 1997, Vonnegut imagined that on February 13, 2001 there would be a timequake; the universe would revert to its position about ten years earlier, and the decade would be repeated exactly as before, with the massively important difference that everybody would remember what happened the first time around, but be powerless to change anything.

Vonnegut's novel is not a narrative of the ten year rerun. It is, instead, a series of commentaries on it, with all kinds of digressions. It is fairly obvious that this is going to produce a more interesting read than a straightforward narrative, especially as it enables Vonnegut to talk about individuals affected in different ways by the beginning and end of the rerun without having to describe experiences in between common to all. (Once someone has reacted to repeated past events with "Oh no, not again" and "Oh good, this again", there isn't a great deal left to say.)

Part of Timequake is autobiographical, little anecdotes from throughout Vonnegut's life, and another part is about Kilgore Trout, the author who is Vonnegut's alter ego in several of his novels. There is a description of them meeting, after the end of the rerun, which is a bizarre touch of irony (but typical of the author). Many of the stories about the two writers are extremely funny; this is one of Vonnegut's most obviously humourous novels.

Like all of Vonnegut's novels, however, Timequake also has something to say. It is about free will, fatalism, and apathy. It is about people living their lives on remote control, which is why the end of the rerun is greeted by accidents (as people driving cars don't realise that they need to be driving them proactively after years when thought and action are disconnected) and the by a syndrome akin to catatonia, Post Timequake Apathy, with people not knowing how to exercise free will. Vonnegut has been consistently suspicious of devices like TV which can reduce a person to a passive observer; he has campaigned against technological devices that he believes are dehumanising.

This was Vonnegut's last novel, as he wanted to retire, and it ends with a clambake attended by many of the people that he knew, or wanted to know, or lookalikes for some who were already dead. The guest of homour at this party is Kilgore Trout (not because of his writing but because of his behaviour when the rerun finished), and as a whole it provides a final ironical twist in a novel filled with them. Vonnegut was able to combine intellectual ideas with the most immediate humour, and Timequake is an excellent example of this talent. (less)

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Aug 09, 2012 Jeremy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I enjoyed this book even more than some of Vonnegut’s other novels. It was semi-autobiographical and very funny. Basically, a “Timequake” shrinks the Universe back 10 years in time and everyone has to relive their last 10 years exactly how they happened the first time, with no free will to change the outcome of anything. Imagine reliving every stupid mistake, every awkward moment, without having any power to correct them. Then when the rerun is over, everyone is slow to realize it so many of the...more

I enjoyed this book even more than some of Vonnegut’s other novels. It was semi-autobiographical and very funny. Basically, a “Timequake” shrinks the Universe back 10 years in time and everyone has to relive their last 10 years exactly how they happened the first time, with no free will to change the outcome of anything. Imagine reliving every stupid mistake, every awkward moment, without having any power to correct them. Then when the rerun is over, everyone is slow to realize it so many of them fall down or crash their cars or otherwise have difficulty functioning after being on autopilot for that long.

After the Timequake, Vonnegut describes a clambake gathering of various people: some real, others characters resembling real people from his life, and of course his alter ego Kilgore Trout, the science fiction writer.

This book is Vonnegut’s rumination about death and his reflection on his own life, with the clambake representing his own funeral. Of course he is lucky enough to be in attendance, as he describes himself in first person taking part in the celebration. While some people talk about wanting others to have a celebration of their life rather than a funeral for them when they die, Kurt goes ahead and does this for himself in literary form.

This was the last full length novel he ever published. Does anyone else find it strange that in the book the Timequake lasts for 10 years, and that in real life Vonnegut died 10 years after it was published?

Quotes:

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.

I say that when couples fight, it isn’t about money or sex or power. What they’re really saying is, “You’re not enough people!”

Listen: We are here on Earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different!

You were sick, but now you’re well again, and there’s work to do.

Extenuating circumstance to be mentioned on Judgment Day: We never asked to be born in the first place.(less)

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Jul 08, 2012 Maggie Campbell rated it 4 of 5 stars

"...He said that when things were really going well we should be sure to notice it.
He was talking about simple occasions, not great victories: maybe drinking lemonade on a hot afternoon in the shade, or smelling the aroma of a nearby bakery, or fishing and not caring if we catch anything or not, or hearing somebody all alone playing a piano really well in the house next door.
Uncle Alex urged me to say out loud during such epiphanies: 'If this isn't nice, what is?'"

"Oh, earth, you're too wonderf...more

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May 14, 2012 Sara rated it 3 of 5 stars

MY TAKE:
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 enjoyed this book, but it seemed more like a social commentary than an actual story line, although Vonnegut admits that he writes non-linear plots– towards the end of his career most of his books had less story and more of a social commentary. A good way to say that doting on the past is irrelevant,...more

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Oct 18, 2011 Malkan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Going into this book, I expected science fiction and some crazy story about warped time or time travel. Some character might go to a different world or maybe time would stop and someone needs to put it back together. Boy, was I wrong. This book was very different indeed.
This book is loaded with stories which I had to put together to understand it all, but they are fairly well organized based on how he wants to build on the climax. The idea of a Timequake is very interesting and his use of the...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Jaquilyn rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I’m not entirely sure what to say about this book … it’s confusing. I felt as if I was going back and forth between reading about Kurt Vonnegut’s actual life and a fictional one he had created. At times I could not tell the difference and most of the time I wasn’t even sure if what I thought were true stories were in fact true at all. However Vonnegut did loop in some historical characters and stories about their actual lives (which were very interesting most of the time). Kilgore Trout was agai...more

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Oct 31, 2009 Erik Graff rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Vonnegut fans

Recommended to Erik by: Thomas Miley

Shelves: sf

Having traveled to California for the marriage and moving of an old friend currently on a short honeymoon, I'm now with his brother and nephew at a communally owned summer house on the edge of the Stanislaus National Forest. They live by the San Francisco airport while the marrying sibling is out in Sonoma, so the usual practice is to stay with them in the city for a few days before heading north to the Napa Valley. On this occasion, given the exigencies of marriage, we had the time to squeeze i...more

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Jul 31, 2009 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was in a bookstore a few years ago, and discovered this novel in the discount bin.

“My God,” I thought. “Is Vonnegut still writing? Where has he been?”

Well, he hadn’t been anywhere; I was the one who had moved away. When I was in college, everyone was reading Kurt Vonnegut, and for good reason. His off-the-wall, free-floating plots, timelines, lost-and-found characters were fun and refreshing. Just the thing we needed in those oh so heady days. Life isn’t supposed to be serious all the time; a...more I was in a bookstore a few years ago, and discovered this novel in the discount bin.

“My God,” I thought. “Is Vonnegut still writing? Where has he been?”

Well, he hadn’t been anywhere; I was the one who had moved away. When I was in college, everyone was reading Kurt Vonnegut, and for good reason. His off-the-wall, free-floating plots, timelines, lost-and-found characters were fun and refreshing. Just the thing we needed in those oh so heady days. Life isn’t supposed to be serious all the time; a certain amount of irreverence breaks up the monotony of everyday highbrow existence.

As it turns out, “Timequake” published in 1997 is his last novel (He died in 2007), and perhaps it should not be considered one of his best, but it still is Vonnegut. It’s worth the read if you are or were a fan. If you want to rekindle part of your screwball youth, buying this book, or any of his books, is much cheaper than a little red sports car.

“Timequake” is cobbled together from an original manuscript by the same name that didn’t work for the master of higgledy-piggledy writing and personal remembrances of his own life. It's sort of a writer bouncing in and out of his work, much like Woody Allen’s “Deconstructing Harry,” just what you might expect from an aging novelist working on his last work.

As in many of his earlier books, Kilgore Trout is the protagonist and Vonnegut once again explores the notion that we really have no free will; we are simple silver-balls in life’s great pinball machine. Our lives happen mostly from reactions to the events that unfold around us. And since I mostly write and read about nature, that is exactly the way the natural world operates.

As an aside,and I know this because I wrote it inside the front cover, I finished this book the night that Michael Jordan played his last basketball game in the NBA. Yes, the one with the Wizards, not the Bulls. The end of yet another era, but he did not quit of his own free will. Much like Vonnegut, he was older and a bit slower but he still had the touch.
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Mar 01, 2013 Josh Karaczewski rated it 5 of 5 stars

To me, this novel/memoir/hybrid - whatever it is - is known by the other plot device in the novel, "The Clambake." It is "The Clambake" to me, and not "Timequake," because through my fairly quick reading of the book, I began to imagine myself at that setting: at a New England clambake, perhaps sitting by a bonfire, where one of my favorite authors is rambling wonderfully on about his life, his work, expressing as much of what he has learned in his long life as he can before the party ends. And t...more

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May 14, 2011 MJ Nicholls rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels, non-fiction, merkins

Timequake is billed as Vonnegut’s last “novel” but it’s neither his last, nor a novel. Hocus Pocus was the final novel from the Master, and A Man Without a Country his last book. This is almost entirely autobiographical, with a few digressions on the career of Kilgore Trout to keep the fictional proceedings going.

No complaints from me. Kurt is on fine form, wisecracking and wise, settling into his batty old grandfather role with ease. What is surprising about this volume is the candour he displa...more

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Jan 09, 2013 Ryan T rated it 3 of 5 stars

The book has an interesting premise, it's partially an autobigraphy of Kurt Vonnegut mixed together with an unfinished novel that he had been working on. It's about a "Timequake" that occurred in 2001 that forced everyone to go back 10 years in time and do everything over again, being forced to relive it without being able to change it. It's an interesting premise, but it's obvious why it was probably never made into a full novel on it's own - it's repetitive and doesn't really go anywhere. (Whi...more

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Aug 22, 2012 Amorfna rated it 4 of 5 stars

Teško mi je zapravo reći nešto...
Vremetres je je stilski dosta drugačija od prethodnica.Uprkos autobiografskim momentima u njegovim prethodnim knjigama, ova predstavlja najpotpuniju sintezu fikcije i stvarnosti . Štaviše, ovo je pre autobiografija, kolekcija Vonegatovih misli sa elementima fikcije koji su ubačeni da bi sve to skupa izgledalo profesionalnije. Ona ima centralnu temu ali ne i radnju koja će se razvijati po klasičnim normama Nešto se stalno dešava ali se ništa konkretno neće desiti....more

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Jul 04, 2010 Daveski rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 52-in-2010

This wasn't really what I expected. The blurb on the back makes it sound like another of Vonnegut's sci-fi novels, but in fact it's the literary equivalent of Fellini's 8 1/2 (he even makes a reference to that film late in the book). Basically, the premise is that he spent a long time working on a novel called "Timequake" that ended up being really lousy, so he scrapped it and started again with this one.

What we ended up getting isn't really a novel, although much of it is fiction. It's basicall...more

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Jul 21, 2009 derrick white rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a book hat I have owned for more than 5 years and have been struggling to read for just as long. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say that Vonnegut struggled to write it (it certainly reads that way and there is a reference to this edition actually being Timequake II). The crux of the plot is that there is a “glitch” in time, causing people to re-live 10 years of their lives. Everyone is aware of the re-play, but no one possesses the free will to change anything. The time quake device is...more

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Sep 04, 2007 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars

I liked this book. I have a feeling that this is not considered to be his best. He seems at this point a tired man and I don't think he would have won the acclaim that he has if this was his best. This was the first Vonnegut for me and I probably should have started with something else like slaughter house five. I have now just started "God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian" and I'm liking it a hell of a lot so I'm looking forward to reading some of his earlier stuff.

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Sep 16, 2011 Caris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, sci-fi

Listen: At 2:27 pm, on February 13, 2001, a timequake occurred. It set the universe back ten years. As such, the unfortunate occupants of Earth were forced to repeat a decade of their lives starting in 1991. Think of it as a prolonged and constant state of déjà vu. They knew what was going to happen, knew what the impact was going to be, and were powerless to do anything about it. Time, after all, is time. There’s no monkeying around with it.

The timequake was very unfortunate for me, now that I...more

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Dec 19, 2009 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, non-fiction

Nearly (?) Vonnegut's last book, Timequake is more memoir than story, with unrelated jokes and Vonnegut-isms thrown in. Because of that, it reminded me of Breakfast of Champions, but it has been a while since I read that book. Timequake sort of reads like his goodbye to fiction, although he ended up "outliving" his alter-ego Kilgore Trout, who in this book passes away in, I think, 2002? I love Trout's defense of why he doesn't bother with creating characters:

"If I'd wasted my time creating chara...more

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Jan 17, 2012 Tabitha rated it 5 of 5 stars

I am fascinated by the division between Vonnegut's earlier work and the books produced towards the end of his life. Timequake falls into this latter category; the book marries seemingly random thoughts and stories with a typical Vonnegut story arc. The jacket flap of my book describes Timequake as being about the sudden contraction of the universe 10 years, before it decides to return to expanding again. This sudden contraction makes the universe travel back 10 years, and everyone on earth must...more

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Aug 15, 2011 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

I realized recently that it's been quite some time since I've read any Vonnegut (scattered short stories aside), and though my current historical jaunt into the battle of Stalingrad is excellent, it's also depressing as hell and I needed a literary foil. I pulled this book off the shelf at random because it's one of the first ones I ever read and one of the only ones I haven't re-read at least once (along with Hocus Pocus, one I read around the same time as Timequake and haven't gone back to, he...more I realized recently that it's been quite some time since I've read any Vonnegut (scattered short stories aside), and though my current historical jaunt into the battle of Stalingrad is excellent, it's also depressing as hell and I needed a literary foil. I pulled this book off the shelf at random because it's one of the first ones I ever read and one of the only ones I haven't re-read at least once (along with Hocus Pocus, one I read around the same time as Timequake and haven't gone back to, hence will be my next Vonnegut rerun), meaning that it's been a good fourteen or fifteen years since I'd gone through it. I remember really liking it at the time, and I still do, though I'd probably have to top off at three and a half stars if half stars were an option here. It's a hard book to define...it's the last novel he ever wrote/published before "retiring" in the late 90s, but strictly speaking it's not a conventional novel at all. It's a re-hash of a novel he started that didn't work, so it's part fiction mixed with large portions of personal reminiscence and the kind of social commentary that would typify later books like A Man Without a Country and Armageddon in Retrospect. The fictional concept of the Timequake is brilliant, as brilliant as Bokonism in Cat's Cradle, and as is always the case with the adventures of Kilgore Trout there's great fun to be had vicariously through that long out of print pissy, jaded sci-fi writer. As with most of Vonnegut's work I laugh out loud at some of his jokes (his summation of the plot of The Scarlet Letter is an absolute gem)and vigorously nod in agreement at many of his observations (like his description of things a school teacher used to be able to do as creative punishment for plagiarism that now they'd "get the piss sued out of them" for). It's not that it's a difficult book, it's just that this particular "novel" skips playfully over the line between his own styles in Breakfast of Champions and Fates Worse Than Death so deftly, and so often, that it really doesn't fall into either category of previously published Vonnegut works, be it hilarious satirical fiction or razor-sharp social observation, but maybe creating a hybrid of the two things he did so well previously was the perfect way for Vonnegut to "retire" from writing novels. (less)

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About Kurt Vonnegut

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 journali...more

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“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.” — 805 people liked it

“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.” — 250 people liked it

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