Product Description

According to science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout, a global timequake will occur in New York City on 13th February 2001. It is the moment when the universe suffers a crisis of conscience. Should it expand or make a great big bang? It decides to wind the clock back a decade to 1991, making everyone in the world endure ten years of deja-vu and a total loss of free will - not to mention the torture of reliving every nanosecond of one of the tawdiest and most hollow decades. With his trademark wicked wit, Vonnegut addresses memory, suicide, the Great Depression, the loss of American eloquence, and the obsolescent thrill of reading books.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42166 in Books
• Published on: 1998-08-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Kurt Vonnegut wasn't too crazy about the first version of his latest (and, he says, last) book Timequake, which is part memoir, part rescued novel. As he writes in the introduction, "My great big fish, which stunk so, was entitled Timequake." The book was originally going to be about a cosmic rerun, where the whole world does one decade over again exactly as it did before. However, after a decade in a writer's block continuum, Vonnegut decided to jump ship and salvage what he could from the wreckage of "a novel that never wanted to be written." He "filleted" the big stinky sucker, took its best parts out and made a "stew", seasoning it with memories and personal anecdotes. Vonnegut's alter ego, Kilgore Trout, the science fiction writer from previous novels (Slaughterhouse Five, Galapagos, Breakfast of Champions), looks back on his life as well when he meets up with Vonnegut at a clambake after history has repeated itself. Both authors discuss the idea of paralyzed "free will", the loss of loved ones and why "being alive is a crock of shit". Although it's filled with Vonnegut's unmistakable sarcasm and quirky insights, Timequakeisn't a streamlined novel with a tightly bound plot and strictly directed characters. It's a loose, free-flowing farewell from one of America's most beloved voices in popular fiction.

About the Author
Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922 and studied biochemistry at Cornell University. During the Second World War he served in Europe and, as a prisoner of was in Germany, witnessed the destruction of Dresden by Allied bombers, an experience which inspired his classic novel Slaughterhouse-Five. He is the author of thirteen other novels, three collections of stories and five non-fiction books. Kurt Vonnegut died in 2007.

Customer Reviews

A perfect climax to a fantastic career
Nearing the end of his life, and this probably his final novel, Vonnegut writes about his feelings as the twentieth century comes to a close. The civil rights movement and socialism have both failed to end human unhappiness, and the aspirations of Vonnegut's generation, those who fought in WW2, have been left largely unfulfilled. Yet despite this undercurrent of despair, Vonnegut presents us with a hotch-potch of brilliantly funny anecdotes from his life (eg. the ballet dancer and the bucket), which he arranges in his familar style around a science-fiction-style plot. This book is both laugh-out loud and inspirational - a must have for all Vonnegut readers.

Ting-a-Ling
It's hard to give this book a star rating. I enjoyed it, it was funny at times, poignant at others. It had a melancholy edge to it, yet had Vonnegut's trademark bizareness.

A few chapters in, you realise that there isn't going to be much of a narrative. There is a story of sorts that is a central point around which the book hangs, but for the most part the premise is a way for Vonnegut to write about his life and the world as he knows it. Perhaps this is his way of writing a kind of autobiography. It reminded me of Douglas Coupland's Life After God, but good and less angsty. It's a very meditative book, it ambles around without much of a direction, but that's ok, because it's filled with brilliant pieces of wisdom. "Listen: we are here on earth to fart around, and don't let anyone tell you different".

This is not a good book for Vonnegut newcomers. While I enjoyed it, it made me want to immediately go and re-read Breakfast of Champions, which I then realised was a much better book. I recommend readers start there and come to this one later. This is a good book and by most other author's standards might be approaching a masterpiece, but for Vonnegut it's more like a quiet coda to his more accomplished works.

Brings back memories
I remember the first Vonnegut I ever read: Cat's Cradle, read in 8 hours on a flight from London to Dallas when I was 14. It was unlike anything I had ever read before or have read since, Vonnegut's other novels included. But this book brought back the excitement of that first discovery.

Timequake is, as far as I am concerned, his best novel. Touching, funny, surreal, quizzical, elegiac, dismissive, pointless, asinine, glorious, weird, wonderful. I've run out of adjectives. Let's hope he can think of some more before he snuffs it.

Incidentally, if you're worried Kurt will pop his clogs and you'll have nothing to read, may I highly recommend Bo Fowler who seems to be making a brave stab at taking over his mantle.