Look out! Kurt's on one of his downers again. What is it this time? I hear you ask. Well, it's quite bizarre.
Vonnegut asks: why there is so much evil in the world? His answer: because human brains are too big; otherwise, the world is 'a very innocent planet'. This is not an original thought. Remember when Hamlet said:
...for there is nothing either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so...
- Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2.
but thinking makes it so...
- Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2.
What is original and bizarre is Vonnegut's solution to the problem of evil. But what that solution is, I am not going to tell you. No spoilers here.
Galápagos was first published in 1985, and much of its action takes place in 1986. For one reason or another, a group of disparate people assemble in Ecuador to take 'the cruise of a lifetime' to the Galápagos Islands. However, a world-wide financial crisis turns fiat currency into useless bits of coloured paper, and then things get nasty.
Vonnegut started his literary career by writing science fiction stories. Later in his life, he took pains to distance himself from the tag of being a Sci-fi writer; yet Galápagos can be construed as a work of speculative fiction with fantasy elements. The story is narrated by a ghost a million years in the future. A personal hand-held device called Mandarax is spookily prescient of smartphones and search engines. There is fallout from the Hiroshima atom bomb, but not in the way you think, and it has enormous ramifications for the future of humankind; likewise, a metaphorical toss of the coin determines the future sanity of our race.
Galápagos is written in Vonnegut's seemingly effortless style. The characters are well-drawn but oh-so-flawed, as we all are. Each has opportunities for salvation, damnation or meek acquiescence to fate. These elements are the strength of this novel. One can but wonder at the overall outcome of the story. We may well say: 'Kurt! Really?'
If you have read this book, or if you ever read it, then you may understand the applicability of another quote from Hamlet:
Galápagos was first published in 1985, and much of its action takes place in 1986. For one reason or another, a group of disparate people assemble in Ecuador to take 'the cruise of a lifetime' to the Galápagos Islands. However, a world-wide financial crisis turns fiat currency into useless bits of coloured paper, and then things get nasty.
Vonnegut started his literary career by writing science fiction stories. Later in his life, he took pains to distance himself from the tag of being a Sci-fi writer; yet Galápagos can be construed as a work of speculative fiction with fantasy elements. The story is narrated by a ghost a million years in the future. A personal hand-held device called Mandarax is spookily prescient of smartphones and search engines. There is fallout from the Hiroshima atom bomb, but not in the way you think, and it has enormous ramifications for the future of humankind; likewise, a metaphorical toss of the coin determines the future sanity of our race.
Galápagos is written in Vonnegut's seemingly effortless style. The characters are well-drawn but oh-so-flawed, as we all are. Each has opportunities for salvation, damnation or meek acquiescence to fate. These elements are the strength of this novel. One can but wonder at the overall outcome of the story. We may well say: 'Kurt! Really?'
If you have read this book, or if you ever read it, then you may understand the applicability of another quote from Hamlet:
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams. - Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2.Galápagos could well be Vonnegut's bad dream.
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