I think this was written during one of KV's bouts of depression. The moral of *this* story: in the words of the immortal Kilgore Trout, "being alive is a crock of shit."
Especially when a "timequake" causes everyone to be zapped back to the year 1991: utterly relieved of free will, the totality of humanity has to relive every nanosecond of the next decade, powerless to do anything about anything but re-experience their triumphs and tragedies, mistakes, and foibles, a concept reminiscent of the movie "Groundhog Day."
A semi-autobiographical novel, it isn't so much about the actual timequake as what happened to those who experienced it, both real and imagined. As it seamlessly incorporates both actual figures, such as KV's family members and friends, as well as his fictional characters, such as Eugene Debs and alter ego Kilgore Trout, as well as historical and fantastical events, it's not a strictly fictional account, as such.
So,if you're expecting a fictional novel featuring new members of KV's less-than-beloved, flawed cast-of-character protagonists, be prepared to be disappointed. There aren't really any new and memorable ones featured in this book. The characteristic rambling, albeit incisive and insightful though it may be, is pure Vonnegut, however, which his die-hard fans know and love. These, in a more overt manner than in his strictly fictional reads reveal his ruminations on life and death, and ultimately the futility of man's existence.
A work of highly creative fiction, this novel of high cynicism should be considered more a veiled philosophical treatise, akin to his later work "A Man Without A Country," featuring some of KV's consistent themes, which include the nature of man, memory, war, suicide, and, here, ultimately, futility. The moral of the story: after two world wars, which KV describes as civilization's dual, failed attempts to commit suicide, history will continue to repeat itself, because mankind is too stupid, or fatalistic, to do anything about it. In fact, I keep thinking of the quote by former Belgian prime minister Herman Van Rompuy, on the 100-Year Anniversary of the start of WWI, which he describes as as "the mindless march to the abyss... the sleepwalking to destruction."
That's essentially what KV describes here: we are cognizant of what's happening, but seem completely incapable, or worse, unwilling, to do anything about it. As with several of his other novels, this one gets kind of schizophrenic at the end, but its essence is pure Vonnegut, featuring enough world-weary maxims and words to live by to last a lifetime.
-------NOTABLE PASSAGES--------
A great American university gives up football in the name of sanity. It turns its vacant stadium into a bomb factory. So much for sanity.
I am speaking of my alma mater the University of Chicago. In December of 1942, long before I got there, the first chain reaction of uranium on earth was compelled by scientists underneath the stands of Stagg Field. Their intent was to demonstrate the feasibility of an atomic bomb.
Now imagine this: A man creates a hydrogen bomb for a paranoid Soviet Union, makes sure it will work, then wins a Nobel Peace Prize! ... he won his Nobel in 1975 for demanding a halt to the testing of nuclear weapons. He, of course, had already tested *his*. His wife was a pediatrician! What sort of person could perfect a hydrogen bomb while married to a child-care specialist? What sort of physician would stay with a mate that cracked? "Anything interesting happen at work today, Honeybunch?" "Yes, my bomb is going to work just great. How are you doing with that kid with chicken pox?"
He said without a scintilla of regret, "I made sandwiches of German soldiers between an erupting Earth and an exploding sky, and in a blizzard of razor blades."
Trout characterized the type of work he was able to get back then as "cleaning bird shit out of cuckoo clocks."
A similar incident happened at a performance of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra when I was a kid ... There was this piece of music that was getting louder and louder, and was supposed to stop all of a sudden. There was this woman... she was talking to a friend during the crescendo, and she had to get louder and louder, too. The music stopped. She shrieked, "I FRY MINE WITH BUTTER!"
On panic: "In real life, as in Grand Opera, arias only make hopeless situations worse."
My hero George Bernard Shaw... said in his eighties that if he was considered smart, he sure pitied people who were considered dumb... When the City of London wanted to give Shaw its Order of Merit, he thanked them for it, but said he had already given it to himself.
The epiphany...is that we shouldn't be seeking harrowing challenges, but rather tasks we find natural and interesting, tasks we were apparently born to perform.
and, final thought...
Listen: we are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.
words to live by...
