Miggle's review
Timequake
by Kurt Vonnegut
Wow. It's been awhile since I've read this but your review puts it squarely back in mind, enticing me to reread it. A trivia: the first time I went to New York I happened upon one of those well-described city-issued wire mesh trash bins. They are really everywhere in Manhattan. (I think there was one outside of one of the main store fronts in Vonnegut's story?) I was thrilled to see it for myself and felt a stupidly maudlin connection with Vonnegut--through the other sort of space-time continuum that exists between the writer of a long-finished book and a recent reader of it. I dang near felt the earth move over my recognition of the bin so present in his setting. The friends who were with me en route to the NORMAL NY landmarks like the Empire State Building, were a bit puzzled at my gaping awe over a,...a what? A city trashbin!? No amount of explaining got me any sympathy and I was whisked off to the tourist spots we came for.
Miggle's review
Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut
Miggle's review
rating:
recommended for: anyone with an eye for satire.
I was right on the edge of giving this book a rating of 4 stars; in terms of Kurt's ability in the context of his prowress shown in earlier works, this one is under par, and thus the demerit. However, the book does some to outplay the various selections available, and so I'll grant it the benefit of a doubt by means of my not-quite-infamous 5-star rating.
Vonnegut's reputation is due to his style of drawing the reader into a story with a really message, but by means of various quips that somehow lead to the point. Really by satirizing what seems like a completely repititious, and therefore not quite autonomic, life, Kurt manages to throw the shadow of doubt on what man deems his free will.
The plot is based around Kurt himself as he goes through a glitch in the space-time continuum, where the universe stops expanding momentarily and instead shrinks, sending its contents back a full ten years. Unable to change the decisions already made, mankind goes through the very same decisions,...more
Vonnegut's reputation is due to his style of drawing the reader into a story with a really message, but by means of various quips that somehow lead to the point. Really by satirizing what seems like a completely repititious, and therefore not quite autonomic, life, Kurt manages to throw the shadow of doubt on what man deems his free will.
The plot is based around Kurt himself as he goes through a glitch in the space-time continuum, where the universe stops expanding momentarily and instead shrinks, sending its contents back a full ten years. Unable to change the decisions already made, mankind goes through the very same decisions,...more
Wow. It's been awhile since I've read this but your review puts it squarely back in mind, enticing me to reread it. A trivia: the first time I went to New York I happened upon one of those well-described city-issued wire mesh trash bins. They are really everywhere in Manhattan. (I think there was one outside of one of the main store fronts in Vonnegut's story?) I was thrilled to see it for myself and felt a stupidly maudlin connection with Vonnegut--through the other sort of space-time continuum that exists between the writer of a long-finished book and a recent reader of it. I dang near felt the earth move over my recognition of the bin so present in his setting. The friends who were with me en route to the NORMAL NY landmarks like the Empire State Building, were a bit puzzled at my gaping awe over a,...a what? A city trashbin!? No amount of explaining got me any sympathy and I was whisked off to the tourist spots we came for.
