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Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut
Book Summary InformationAuthor: Kurt Vonnegut Edition: Paperback Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published) Format: Large Print Published: 1998-05 ISBN: 1568955561 Number of pages: 217 Publisher: Wheeler Publishing
Book Reviews of TimequakeBook Review: Coda Summary: 5 StarsWith "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 TimequakeAfter the universe decides to back up ten years and all humans must live through the 1990s again, author Kurt Vonnegut finds himself trying to write a book called Timequake, which he knows he will never finish since he already did not finish it. 200,000 first printing." 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.
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