Timequake

De: Kurt Vonnegut

Narrado por: Arthur Bishop

According to Kurt Vonnegut's alter ego, the old science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, a global timequake will occur on February 13, 2001, at 2:27 p.m. It will be the moment when the universe suffers a crisis of conscience: Should it go on expanding indefinitely or collapse and make another great big BANG? For its own cosmic reasons, it decides to back up a decade to 1991, giving the world a 10-year case of deja vu, making everybody and everything do exactly what they'd done during the past decade - for good or ill - a second time.

As a character in and a brilliant chronicler of this bizarre event, Kurt Vonnegut casts his wicked wit and his unique perspective on life as he's lived it and observed it for more than 70 years.

©1997 Kurt Vonnegut (P)2015 Macmillan Audio

Not his best

Not his worst. If you love him ….well this book must have been what it was like to spend a few hours with KV on an afternoon as he got progressively drunker until it was time to eat dinner. Some fascinating stream of consciousness observations about language and love make this not a waste of time. Also incredibly prescient about automation and AI and the type of robotics that can make a craftsman want to give it all up. I mean all of it.

Typical wry and dark Vonnegut humor...

I've always enjoyed reading Vonneguts' prose and none of it ever disappoints. While the voice actor/readers voice is average at best, I enjoyed listening to his work read aloud for the first time. Wit, intelligence, excellent insight into the broad spectrum that is the condition of mankind. As his alter ego Kilgore Trout makes a welcomed appearance--you are brought along for an exceptional weaving of Vonneguts own history and life while at the same time experiencing "the time warp". Ting-a-ling you son-of-a-bitch... Ting-a-ling.

More of a series is essays than a novel

I picked this up expecting a novel, but I think I got something better. It’s more of a series of anecdotes, loosely strung together. I really like his wit and there was more than enough to make me smile. Might not be a good first book for those unfamiliar with Vonnegut, but you never know.

A fun chance to meet Vonnegut again

Ignore the fact that this book has nothing to do with a “Timequake”, though it is mentioned a time or two, and just bask in the combination of Vonnegut’s silliness and the dollops of Wisdom, Atheism, and 20th Century Socialist Politics that fills its pages.

What a wonderful treat. Four Stars ****

Ting-a-ling!

If this isn't nice, what is?

Vonnegut in fine form dazzling us while we contemplate deep questions and laugh at crude jokes. Brilliant.

Not Vonnegut’s best

But still an enjoyable book. Vonnegut’s humor and philosophy abound. I am glad I listened to it.

Arias only make hopeless situations worse

Timequake was one of the first books my wife ever gave me. I don't know why it took me so long to read. I WAS a huge fan of Vonnegut 20 years ago when we first got married and I loved my wife. Clearly, I at age 23 I wasn't a fan of Vonnegut enough or trusted my wife's taste in books enough. I think I was just fearful Vonnegut was just mailing a final novel in. This was one of the last things he published, and I think it was his last novel (I might check this and find out I was wrong, it happens).

Anyway, I think all three of us were right. My wife was beautifully right in buying me Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt Vonnegut was right in writing it. I was right in waiting. I wasn't ready for this book. I'm now 20 years closer to death. I am now a father to two pimply teenagers who are sleeping tonight waiting for their parents to pretend still they are Santa and bring them goodies on Christmas morning. We are all pretending the best we can. We are all making the best of this short spin on Earth. I am now in a place where I can functionally GET the older Vonnegut better. I can get better his take on free will, money, morality, and art.

Timequake isn't a great novel, but it has absolutely brilliant parts. I love its lines and sentences better than I liked the book. It has a fantastic message about extended family and friends and community that I absolutely adored. It has so many good lines (yes, I said that before, but now I'm going to pull back the curtain):

"Only when free will kicked in again could they stop running obstacle courses of their own construction."

"Let us be perfectly frank for a change. For practically everybody, the end of the world can’t come soon enough."

"I define a saint as a person who behaves decently in an indecent society."

"...when things were really going well we should be sure to notice it."

"Pictures are famous for their humanness, and not for their pictureness."

Huh...

Only Vonnegut could get away with writing a long winded foreword about a book he felt was unpublishable, tack on an afterword.... and call it done. Not one of his best, but still Kurt Vonnegut.

Wild. Wacky. Vonnegut!

Never boring, Kurt Vonnegut performs handstands in this crazy-upside-down story. He's great!

Arthur Bishop does a fine job of narrating.

Great story with disappointing narration

The narrator appears to not have understood the text and mispronounced many words. There was an earlier version of the audiobooks read by Lawrence Pressman that was excellent but can only be found on CD now.