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A review by thelizabeth
Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut
5.0
I loved this book the first time I read it a few years ago, and I really love considering it a favorite book of mine. Mostly because: what is it? What even is this.
I'm not the deepest-read Vonnegut fan there is, just a handful really, but I believe that this book isn't exactly typical. It is his last novel -- written, somewhat incredibly, 10 years before his death. And as a novel, it sort of isn't, not with a start-to-finish plot and detailed world-build and thorough character, other, of course, than Vonnegut himself. And Kilgore Trout.
The fictional idea of the book is that a "timequake" occurs, wrenching the physical universe backward 10 years. But everything alive, remembers. People carry out the last 10 years of their lives in full, knowing what comes next, and not physically able to do one thing differently. They just watch, and wait to catch up to themselves.
I love this idea, profoundly. This idea is what I'm made of. It is sad and breathtaking and really quite freaky. 10 years ago this instant -- would you want to suddenly be back there? Right now?
It is, however, a lot more idea than story. All we know is that this, supposedly, has happened. (Though, it "happens" in 2001, despite Vonnegut writing the book in 1997, thus placing him in the middle of it.) There is a little bit about a scene that occurs in New York City when it finally ends. And then 75% of the rest of the book are Vonnegut's thoughts on what this means. He thinks about what is real, how people handle time and memory. And he mostly does this by just telling stories about his family.
There is a very strange meta thing happening, as well. Vonnegut handles both himself and his longtime alter-ego Kilgore Trout in detail here, essentially giving amazing backstory for each of them as individuals, and by the end, blurring the fictional/nonfictional lines between them for the final and most definitive time. Particularly, a scene plays throughout the book of a clambake held on a beach, which Vonnegut is attending alongside Trout (who is being honored), people from Vonnegut's real life, and characters from the fictional parts of the book. It's nuts. It's nice.
There is a lot of this in-and-out structure. Sometimes we're talking about the timequake. Sometimes we're telling the story about what happened after it, the moment it ended when Trout was outside the American Academy of Arts and Letters building on W. 155th Street, next to the former home of the Museum of the American Indian -- which is, for certain, completely real -- and became a hero at last.
This. This real place. Very, very much of this book is the most utterly nonfiction thing I've read in any book, even the details in the fictional thoughts. He is writing memories on a theme, nonfiction fables of standing in line at the post office, ways of making jokes out of life, ways of making life meaningful, and stupid, stupid things that have happened. It is like Kurt Vonnegut's Livejournal. It is advice. And it is the barest, most open thing I think you could read. He gives his old home address! From his childhood in Indianapolis. Because he tells such unbelievable stories here, I even did some fact-checking to see how fanciful he got. But he really didn't do so. He even actually read the acceptance speech about nuclear annihilation for Andrei Sakharov on Staten Island in 1987 that by god I thought he made up. He didn't. It happened.
This kind of incredible mind-blowing realness of life is basically the exact subject of this book. How intense every odd moment we spend really is. He fills the book with them, about five dozen tiny chapters mostly just recording events like this, can you believe they happened. Sometimes he mocks himself for his theme, for making a big deal of it, but also, it's just the best subject there is; it's the only subject there is.
On Wikipedia, this book is called semi-autobiographical. I love that. It's impossible, but it's perfect.
I'm not the deepest-read Vonnegut fan there is, just a handful really, but I believe that this book isn't exactly typical. It is his last novel -- written, somewhat incredibly, 10 years before his death. And as a novel, it sort of isn't, not with a start-to-finish plot and detailed world-build and thorough character, other, of course, than Vonnegut himself. And Kilgore Trout.
The fictional idea of the book is that a "timequake" occurs, wrenching the physical universe backward 10 years. But everything alive, remembers. People carry out the last 10 years of their lives in full, knowing what comes next, and not physically able to do one thing differently. They just watch, and wait to catch up to themselves.
I love this idea, profoundly. This idea is what I'm made of. It is sad and breathtaking and really quite freaky. 10 years ago this instant -- would you want to suddenly be back there? Right now?
It is, however, a lot more idea than story. All we know is that this, supposedly, has happened. (Though, it "happens" in 2001, despite Vonnegut writing the book in 1997, thus placing him in the middle of it.) There is a little bit about a scene that occurs in New York City when it finally ends. And then 75% of the rest of the book are Vonnegut's thoughts on what this means. He thinks about what is real, how people handle time and memory. And he mostly does this by just telling stories about his family.
There is a very strange meta thing happening, as well. Vonnegut handles both himself and his longtime alter-ego Kilgore Trout in detail here, essentially giving amazing backstory for each of them as individuals, and by the end, blurring the fictional/nonfictional lines between them for the final and most definitive time. Particularly, a scene plays throughout the book of a clambake held on a beach, which Vonnegut is attending alongside Trout (who is being honored), people from Vonnegut's real life, and characters from the fictional parts of the book. It's nuts. It's nice.
There is a lot of this in-and-out structure. Sometimes we're talking about the timequake. Sometimes we're telling the story about what happened after it, the moment it ended when Trout was outside the American Academy of Arts and Letters building on W. 155th Street, next to the former home of the Museum of the American Indian -- which is, for certain, completely real -- and became a hero at last.
This. This real place. Very, very much of this book is the most utterly nonfiction thing I've read in any book, even the details in the fictional thoughts. He is writing memories on a theme, nonfiction fables of standing in line at the post office, ways of making jokes out of life, ways of making life meaningful, and stupid, stupid things that have happened. It is like Kurt Vonnegut's Livejournal. It is advice. And it is the barest, most open thing I think you could read. He gives his old home address! From his childhood in Indianapolis. Because he tells such unbelievable stories here, I even did some fact-checking to see how fanciful he got. But he really didn't do so. He even actually read the acceptance speech about nuclear annihilation for Andrei Sakharov on Staten Island in 1987 that by god I thought he made up. He didn't. It happened.
This kind of incredible mind-blowing realness of life is basically the exact subject of this book. How intense every odd moment we spend really is. He fills the book with them, about five dozen tiny chapters mostly just recording events like this, can you believe they happened. Sometimes he mocks himself for his theme, for making a big deal of it, but also, it's just the best subject there is; it's the only subject there is.
On Wikipedia, this book is called semi-autobiographical. I love that. It's impossible, but it's perfect.