Timequake

Timequake
by Kurt Vonnegut

Timequake
List Price: $14.00
Our Price: $5.99
You Save: $8.01 (57%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.75 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1998-08-01
ISBN: 0425164349
Number of pages: 250
Publisher: Berkley Trade

Book Reviews of Timequake

Book Review: Coda
Summary: 5 Stars

With "Timequake", Vonnegut's final novel, he is clearly looking backward. When the universe stops expanding, everyone on the planet is forced to relive the last ten years of their life exactly as it had been before. Although this clearly ties in with Vonnegut's common theme of fate and predestination, the loose plot of the novel is mostly an excuse for Vonnegut to reminiscence.

You could almost call "Timequake" a memoir, albeit a highly unconventional one. Vonnegut includes both himself, aging famous author and family man, and his literary doppelganger Kilgore Trout, aging obscure author and vagabond, in this book. Together, perhaps, they both form the yin and yang to his psyche.

Vonnegut has a lot to say about a lot of things. And instead of hiding his opinions behind satire or science fiction, he mostly just comes out with it. He talks about family, politics, the sexes, art, fatherhood, work, money, class and all of life's other big topics in a clever, straightforward and thoughtful way. He tries hard to remain humble and resist the urge to preach. But he can't help exposing himself as a sensitive, moral humanist.

Summary of Timequake

There's been a timequake. And everyone--even you--must live the decade between February 17, 1991 and February 17, 2001 over again. The trick is that we all have to do exactly the same things as we did the first time--minute by minute, hour by hour, year by year, betting on the wrong horse again, marrying the wrong person again. Why? You'll have to ask the old science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout. This was all his idea.
Think of Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut's 19th and last novel (or so he says), as a victory lap. It's a confident final trot 'round the track by one of the greats of postwar American literature. After 40 years of practice, Vonnegut's got his schtick down cold, and it's a pleasure--if a slightly tame one--to watch him go through his paces one more time.

Timequake's a mongrel; it is half novel, half memoir, the project of a decade's worth of writer's block, a book "that didn't want to be written." The premise is standard-issue Vonnegut: "...a timequake, a sudden glitch in the space-time continuum, made everybody and everything do exactly what they'd done during past decades, for good or ill, a second time..." Simultaneously, the author's favorite tricks are on display--frequent visits with the shopworn science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, a Hitchcockian appearance by the author at the book's end, and frequent authorial opining on love, war, and society.

Contemporary Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Vonnegut Novels Ranked
Blue Beard ImageBlue Beard
by Kurt Vonnegut
Delacorte Press; Published: 1987; Paperback; Book
Jailbird ImageJailbird
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1999-01-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.19
Price in other shops: $14.00
Slapstick: Or Lonesome No More! ImageSlapstick: Or Lonesome No More!
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1999-05-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.25
Price in other shops: $14.00
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater ImageGod Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1998-09-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.20
Price in other shops: $14.00
Galapagos (Delta Fiction) ImageGalapagos (Delta Fiction)
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1999-01-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops: $14.00
Player Piano ImagePlayer Piano
by Kurt Vonnegut
The Dial Press; Published: 1999-01-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.32
Price in other shops: $14.00
Timequake ImageTimequake
by Kurt Vonnegut
Berkley Trade; Published: 1998-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.00
Price in other shops: $14.00
Mother Night ImageMother Night
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1999-05-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops: $14.00
Hocus Pocus ImageHocus Pocus
by Kurt Vonnegut
Berkley; Published: 1991-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.25
Price in other shops: $7.99
Deadeye Dick ImageDeadeye Dick
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1999-05-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.47
Price in other shops: $14.00
Similar Books and other products
Slapstick: Or Lonesome No More! ImageSlapstick: Or Lonesome No More!
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1999-05-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops: $14.00
Jailbird ImageJailbird
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1999-01-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.91
Price in other shops: $14.00
Bluebeard (Delta Fiction) ImageBluebeard (Delta Fiction)
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1998-09-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.91
Price in other shops: $14.00
Mother Night ImageMother Night
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1999-05-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.91
Price in other shops: $14.00
A Man Without a Country ImageA Man Without a Country
by Kurt Vonnegut
Seven Stories Press; Published: 2005-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.49
Price in other shops: $23.95
Slaughterhouse-Five ImageSlaughterhouse-Five
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1999-01-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.69
Price in other shops: $14.00
Cat's Cradle ImageCat's Cradle
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dell Publishing; Published: 1998-09-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.42
Price in other shops: $14.00
The Sirens of Titan ImageThe Sirens of Titan
by Kurt Vonnegut
The Dial Press; Published: 1998-09-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.91
Price in other shops: $14.00
Breakfast of Champions ImageBreakfast of Champions
by Kurt Vonnegut
Dial Press Trade Paperback; Published: 1999-05-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.50
Price in other shops: $14.00
Hocus Pocus ImageHocus Pocus
by Kurt Vonnegut
Berkley Trade; Published: 1997-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.48
Price in other shops: $14.95
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories