Galapagos

Rating:
Summary: Decent Vonnegut work, certainly not his best
Review: Galapagos is probably my 2nd least favorite Vonnegut book, which is not to say that is a bad book. Kurt Vonnegut, however, has done much better. It's tough to tell exactly where Galapagos is going from the beginning of the book, and the majority of the story after that is a gradual process of building up to a climax that never appears. Galapagos works well as a caustic satire of civilization and all the supposedly beneficial products of our ridiculously large brains. But I couldn't help feeling that there should have been something more here. The characters themselves are interesting and Vonnegut's gleeful dissection of their destinies (death, for most) and the evolutionary consequences of them presents a picture of the personal aspects of Darwinism. The ending was extremely unsatisfying and it just left me utterly depressed. Vonnegut's future for the human race saddened me more than I had expected, even when I viewed the book as a satire. Make no mistake, this book is extremely pessimistic. Even from the detached viewpoint of the narrator, one can't help but sympathize with the characters, merely pawns in the evolutionary game. And very few of the characters have any redeeming qualities at all. Perhaps this was Vonnegut's aim with this book, but I couldn't help but a feel a sense of terrible loss, and I didn't at all find his new human race brave or admirable. Galapagos, I suppose, will mean vastly different things for different people. For me, it was a reminder that civilization does have many benefits, and that if it would perish, I would mourn it. For this realization at least, I have Vonnegut to thank.

Rating:
Summary: Our brains are too big
Review: 1,000,000 years in the future our brains will evolve down to a size where they will actually be helpful to our survival.

Human's brains are currently far too big to help us in survival. This is the main theme throughout this very funny book. Vonnegut addresses, in his typical style, how counterproductive the workings of our 'huge' brains are; how they trick us and make our lives much more difficult than they actually need to be.

I was surprised to see all of the poor reviews for this book since I loved it so much.

Thought provoking and funny. Right in line with his other books.

Rating:
Summary: I liked it
Review: This is my second reading of Vonnegut, my first being his play "Happy Birthday, Wanda June" Anyway, I picked up Galapagos at the book store because the back looked interesting, and I finished it in three days (I only paused because the day in the middle was my birthday) Anyway, I really liked the book, it made me laugh and go out and get more Vonnegut books to read. Basically, it's about the end of the world, and how people survive it and how they adapt. I didn't find anything dark or depressing about it, and the lead character is Mary Hepburn (I guess Mary is symbolic. Maybe not, I don't know) Anyway, it's a good book. There were a few parts where I got bored, but at the very least it's a book I read over the summer, so if anything, it's something to do to pass your time.

Rating:
Summary: an awful waste of time
Review: I guess every author has a flop, for Kurt Vonnegut is a satirical genius of an author who has written a number of great works, including Slaughter-House Five, Cat's Cradle, and Timequake, which makes it rather hard to believe that he could write something as terrible and saddening as his book Galapagos.
Galapagos is a novel (if you can even call it that) bearing a plot (if you can even say it HAD a plot) where a small group of people on a cruise ship are stranded on the Galapagos islands. The story's narration is told through the point of view of the cruise ship's ghost. Even this is badly dealt with, for if the ghost was so significant that Mr. Vonnegut would make him the actual NARRATOR OF THE STORY, the "ghost" should be at least MENTIONED a little more, rather than in the two mere chapters he IS in.
Dealing with what it does, Galapagos will do nothing but depress... anyone who reads it. The story talks of the darker sides of the nature of humans. Through the book, people are depicted as nothing but a group of filthy, slug-like creatures who know how to do nothing else but cause destruction and copulate (example: when the castaways first arrive on the islands, do you know what they do? In order to create space for themselves, they kill a good number of the islands' original inhabitants, such as the iguanas and the blue-footed boobies in the most gruesome ways one could think of. As time passes, copulation becomes a frequent hobby among the castaways.) The story ends with a poor, pitiful, and horribly expected climax.
Galapagos features a boring beginning of 220 pages in which nothing happens (there are only about 100 more pages after that, and even in those 100 very little occurs). There is little or no character development, and the author repeats himself ...
A book about killing, sex, and a group of "evil" ship cruisers, Galapagos is NOT a book to be bothered with, and definitely NOT a book that should leave its store shelves empty in a big hurry (pretty bad, because it came out over 15 yrs. ago!!!)

Rating:
Summary: A New Kind of Science Fiction
Review: This was an excellent look at evolutionary bottlenecks. Though the million-year-old ghost as observer is a bit of a deus ex machina, the rest of the work shows very clearly the adaptation to a changing environment by a particular animal, namely Homo sapiens. Is an advanced brain truly an evolutionary advantage? It causes the extinction of an entire species- us. The initial cause of mass infertility through parasitism also raises interesting questions on the nature of parasitism itself, as the parasite destroys it's host. This short work was recommended by my Marine Invert prof in undergrad for a fictional and accurate understanding of the inward nature of evolution. Vonnegut truly captures the philosophy behind the theory and not only the facts. A new kind of science fiction- fiction which helps us understand science better.

Rating:
Summary: Not one of my favorites from Vonnegut
Review: I didn't find this book insightful, interesting, or very entertaining. It moves very slowly and doesn't really go anywhere which probably inhibits Vonnegut from really conveying his messages. I recently read Cat's Cradle, Jailbird, and Bluebeard and all were much better. Maybe I've overdosed on Vonnegut over the past few weeks, but I really shouldn't have to try hard to enjoy a book.

Rating:
Summary: An author that grows on you....
Review: Vonnegut is an author that really grows on me. Galapagos is the latest novel that I've read, and (like the rest of his) immediately becomes my favorite.

The premise of the book is that humanity is going to make an enormous change of genetic course due in part to it's own stupidity. The onion is peeled, and the story reveals more about the problems in humanity while following the story of the future common parents of mankind.

The book maintains several consistencies with Vonnegut's other works:
- A witty style that covers sharp criticism. (Like they've said of Twain, "They'd hang him if they thought he was serious")
- A satire that's sometimes obvious, but sometimes hiding behind the story.
- Cameos by characters from his other books.
- A solid criticism of modern societyu

Rating:
Summary: Very good, patently satirical Vonnegut
Review: At one point in my life, I thought this was just a brilliant book. One of the best ever written. Now that I'm slightly older, I still like it, but I think it's a slightly more cynical, less brilliant novel than it once was...in my mind.

It's safe to say that all the essentiall Vonnegut trademarks are present: cynicism, satire, humor, intelligence. But each of those elements falls off from his best work. If I could, I would give this a 3.5, because it's a little better than a run of the mill 3 and not quite as good as a 4.

I like the metaphors of the 6 eventual mothers of mankind breaking the egg barrier by sheer luck. And that of the umbillical cord tethering the ship to the mainland. Yes, they are clever, but Vonnegut makes sure he hits you over the head with comment after comment on these, making sure the reader gets just how humankind's current life began and how similar it is to birth.

Also, you have to admire the Darwinian bashing done by the irony of natural selection having nothing to do with what we will become and having it happen on an island where Natural Selection was born. Again, all the Vonnegut elements are there. Pure Vonnegut. Excellent.

But it seems that Vonnegut gets too caught up in his own cleverness and dwells on it too much. Either that or he expects the reader to not get his ideas to begin with. The novel moves slowly, essentially spinning circles around the idea that our big brains are such a problem in our current stations. Well, current as you and I are in now. But the story so dwells on this, that we lose momentum. We lose focus. We wander around waiting for something more pertinent to happen. Unfortunately, it never really does.

This book has the fodder to be a brilliant novella. But spread over a full length book, it looses some of that. For better or worse, this is how it was packaged up and put to pasture. It's a good read. Ironic. Cynical. Satirical. Funny. Just not the utmost of any of those.

I would recommemd this to previous Vonnegut readers, not to Vonnegut newcomers.

Rating:
Summary: Would you rather be Furry?
Review: Prepare yourself for the nature cruise of the century. This was the first Vonnegut book I read, and I thought it was great. Interesting characters and dialogue, easy going plot and movement, and very amusing. I enjoyed the philosophy of the story as well, which questions the evolution of the human race, and possibly the precarious nature of Darwinism. Will our "big brains" lead us to the brink of ecstacy, or the brink of disaster? Maybe neither. Read and find out! But beware of sharks.

Rating:
Summary: Not my favorite of Vonnegut's works.
Review: With Vonnegut, it's always hard to tell what he is truly trying to convey to the reader. It seems, at times, that even he loses track of the plot and that may be the true brilliance of his style. Galapagos, on the other hand, did not contain much of Kurt's usual cynicism and wit. It stumbled forward at times never fully fulfilling the reader's hopes....at least for me it didn't. If this was his outlandish attempt at being like Michener, I truly hope it was his only attempt. I must reiterate I do enjoy Kurt Vonnegut but there are some things better left unsaid and some stories better left unwritten.