the meaning of the end-spoiler alert

[Karen]

I have not read a review or analysis of this book that surmises that the narrator, Leon Trout, did not actually die and become a ghost, but instead became demented because of the syphilis he contracted in Vietnam (this kind of insanity is called general paresis when it comes from syphilis). The result of Leon’s dementia is a delusion that he dies, becomes a ghost, and watches humanity devolve into seal-like creatures over the span of a million years. This is what most readers take as the plot of the book.
What in Leon’s story reveals that it is a delusion?
First, that the end should reveal that Leon has syphilis and does not get traditional treatment for it. If the plot were not a delusion, the end would be that people became seal-like creatures. Without coming to the conclusion that the story thus far was a delusion, the end feels like a punch-line that makes no sense. The last part of the story is useless in relation to the main plot of devolution otherwise.
The way the story is narrated also forces the reader to notice Leon’s train of thought and conclusions more than the actual events. The tale is not told linearly. Every event and many thoughts within the narrative lead back to one obsessive thought of Leon’s: that human brains do more harm than good and our species would be better if we did not think so much, like animals. We are truly inside Leon’s mind and follow his thoughts. We are not observers of the story, as Leon claims to be. This makes the story seem less real and more a product of Leon’s mind.
Also, Leon’s moral that brains do more harm than good makes more sense for one who saw insanity in Vietnam and who himself went insane and cannot trust his own mind.
Several characters in Leon’s story are insane as well. There is Roy Hepburn, who has a brain tumor, Siegfried von Kleist and his father, who have Huntington’s disease, a murderous gunman in Ecuador, and Captain von Kleist in his old age. Not only do these characters share craziness, a defect of their big brains, in common with each other and perhaps also with Leon, many of them peculiarly have dancing mentioned in connection with their madness. Leon loved to dance. Why this further connection between Leon and the crazy people? It hints that Leon’s life may have more to do with the story than one might originally think. Someone who loved to dance would mention dancing in a story of his invention, just as a person struggling with delusions might mention insanity and frame a story on how brains are unreliable and harmful. The descriptions of insanity and the definition of the soul are definite high points of the novel.
Another clue is Leon’s father, science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, who Leon says wrote a novel similar to Leon’s story with a similar moral. Leon’s dementia would certainly include both hatred and adulation of his estranged father, the cause of his outburst of feeling at the end of the novel. Leon gives his father a tribute by devising this science fiction story and mocks the tribute by describing how meaningless it and all stories are in a world where no one will ever read or tell complicated stories again.
Finally, in Leon’s delusion, Kilgore is dead by 1986. However, Kilgore Trout is a repeating character of Vonnegut’s and appears alive in Timequake ten years later. A mistake on Vonnegut’s part? Or proof that Vonnegut did not intend for Leon’s story to be taken at face value?
I may not be correct in my analysis, but if I am, I’m sorry that Vonnegut’s novel is not more widely appreciated as the interesting psychological study it is. Of course, I may just be delusional and see patterns where none were intended. Does that lessen the value of my perspective?

[DarkRodro]

You mention Timequake: While it's true the dates of Kilgore's death don't match, in that novel Kilgore Trout does recall Leon's death under those same circumstances.

I think you are making the far too common mistake of taking a first person account in a book (or any other media) as a fantasy inside a literary universe that makes sense, instead of taking the book (or it's universe) as a fantasy or allegory in THIS universe (that supposedly makes sense). I'm not saying that's not the case in some stories, but I feel people take it too far, and nothing in the other Vonnegut's books I read makes me think he expects us to take his stories that way (and again Timequake it's probably the best example).

If Galapagos story exists inside a head, then it's inside Vonnegut's and the reader heads, in my opinion.

That said, and despite not sharing it, I think your interpretation is interesting.

[Adam]

Vonnegut made a point about never reading a finished book of his and was positively uninterested in the discrepancies of the reoccurring characters in his books. So you can't really point to Timequake to reflect on Galapagos.

[Ellen]

.

[Jason]

Still one of my all time favorites. Didn't care for TimeQuake though, except for the side story Vonnegut's alter-ego tells--that part was weirdly interesting