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Summary: Is "Timequake" the real "Timequake One"?
Review: Timequake is a trick question about the 21st century, and perches so precariously between Vonnegut's exhaustive and exhausting incriminations of technology, free will and mondo-capitalism on the one hand and the cleverest novel the master of non-linear form has come up with yet. Vonnegut does what all authors should do, which is to make up history. He writes about events at a 2001 clambake with the same tone and respect as his experiences in 1970 Biafra or the 1997 death of his beloved brother. He puts himself in the story, and not just in passing (as in Breakfast of Champions and Slaughterhouse Five). Most spectacularly, he begins by drawing distinctions between fiction and non-, then proceeds to destroy them wholly by the end of the novel: the story he creates of John Wilkes Booth's bastard great-many-times-removed-grandson who performs for Trout, Vonnegut et al at the clambake is merely a synopsis of "Timequake" in its entirety. While there is never indistinction drawn between fact and fiction a la "The Crying of Lot 49", Vonnegut interplays the one with the other and creates a faction much more compelling. Finally, I submit that "Timequake" *is* "Timequake One"; the latter exists only as a Kilgore Trout-style fable to provide the author a backdrop to dissolve himself into history.
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Summary: A fond farewell...
Review: This book, while well-written and often brilliant, needs to be taken out of the context used to grade Vonnegut's other works. This is more of a farewell than a novel. An epilogue at the end of a man's fabulous life story. It's a writer looking back on his career and realizing, with equal parts grace and appreciation, that it is coming to a close. Vonnegut at the end of his book, thanks his one and only addiction -- those horizontal and vertical lines that form the characters of the English language. Only Vonnegut would have the courtesy to thank the words that made his life so extraordinary. "What a language," he says. What an artist.
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Summary: Don't judge a book by its title - this one doesn't deliver
Review: I found "Timequake" a disappointment. I ordered it because I found the thought of a real "Timequake" an absolutely fascinating idea for a plot. To have to relive 10 years of our lives! However, that's not what this book is about. It's a series of loose reminiscing that at times can be humorous, but for the most part is nothing but a giant tease. There's no meat to this book... I kept waiting for the plot to develop, and it didn't. Perhaps if it had been called "The Recollections and Musings of Kurt Vonnegut," I'd have been less disappointed, for the book would have lived up to its billing. As they say, don't judge a book by its cover - or its title.
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Summary: Time gets unstuck in New York City
Review: Kilgore Trout is here, now; and then. Which makes this an above average novel. Vonnegut is here once in a while, every now and then. Which is interesting, but sad. If you love Vonnegut you have to read it. It'll take a night. If you don't: "Billy Pilgrim got unstuck in time" is a better exposition of the concepts here, and it's only one sentence long.
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Summary: Great Book
Review: Wonderful, Vonegut uses his magic again.I couldn't put it down.
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Summary: Going out not with a bang, but a ting-a-ling.
Review: Perhaps it's fitting that I have a weird deja-vu associated with this book. Quite sometime ago I happened see a Vonnegut title on the shelf, which I believe was called Timequake One. Without money to buy the hardcover, though, I passed. A few weeks later when I went looking for it, I asked at the info desk if they had the new Vonnegut. "Timequake", they told me, would be out in two weeks. ???? True story, I swear. You may call the way Vonnegut writes "style", or "template", depending on how much you like it and how generous you're being. I think that, unfortunately, Timequake is a loosely filled template. He gives us the mandatory catch phrases (Ting-a-ling!) and he repeats himself ad nauseam when he wants to make a point. But this idea of a book that's telling us what another book (Timequake One) *would* have been about it a little weird. If we're to believe Vonnegut's own words, this is his last novel. I can't say that I"m terribly broken up by the thought - I ha
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Summary: Life and How To Live It...
Review: Thank someone up above or down below for this new work from Vonnegut. I am currently in the midst of completing it, but I already know I will read it again. The most fascinating parts of this book are the autobiographical excerpts Kurt offers up as a farewell to his loyal readers, readers who still take the time to pick up a 'book that matters'. As I ride the commuter train in and out of Boston during my daily grind, I can step back from this crazy world and say "Isn't this nice..."
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Summary: Once again Vonnegut presents unique thoughts on the universe
Review: No other American author has so continuously introduced new ideas on how one should view the crazy happenings on this planet Earth or the planet Booboo for that matter. In a new form of "novel" incorporating direct autobiography, indirect personal observations through his alter ego, Kilgore Trout, and a series of storylines scattered with typical Vonnegut characters, the author looks at life from angles most of us have never reposed. The underlying tale of a ten-year repeat of the universe's history via a timequake forces the readers to think about all the little timequakes in our lives and the moments we would like to relive. A timequake requires one to relive it all with no changes. The author's reflections on his own family in small timequakes present a very human and appealing side of this important contibutor to our understanding of what life is all about. This was a very satisfying read for Vonnegut regulars. This should not be the first Vonnegut book for a new reader. Let us hope this is not Kurt Vonnegut's last novel as he proclaims. What a writer. Ting-a-ling!
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Summary: A piquant farewell to a treasured friend
Review: I have mixed emotions about Vonnegut's newest and, as he says himself, last novel. In it he states that what we are reading is actually a rewrite of his original that is referred to as "Timequake 1". After finding that TQ1 "didn't work", he decided to scrap most of it in favor of a memoir/novel/ essay that would be his answer to a sports hero's final season. I live in Chicago, and I'll mourn Michal Jordan's retirement much less than this old friend's, whom I've invited into my home time and again over the decades. I only hope that he'll change his mind and maybe even give us a chance to decide for ourselves the merits of Timequake 1, and that perhaps he'll throw a collection of short stories our way. I just finished the book, autographed at a recent signing here; and now feel that a friend has left forever. That is why I gave the book a mediocre rating, 'cause "I feel like something the cat drug in". Ray Schmitz III
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Summary: Kilgore's first collection
Review: Who knew that after buying Vonnegut's last "novel" (and reading the liner notes) that I would actually have in my hand the most postmodern collection of short stories in years. While rippling the pages with humorous, Troutism short stories, Vonnegut explains his madness in this turn-(and re-turn) of-the-century neo-novel. Neither Trout nor Vonnegut ride off into the satisfying sunset of Novelland. Instead, both leave readers amusingly bewildered in a classic Vonnegut collection. Before dropping this book into a metal waste bin outside any academy, jump into the Timequake and give it a second run.
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