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grrr8_catsby's review against another edition
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
3.5
Kurt Vonnegut's Galápagos feels like the true spiritual successor to 1973's Breakfast Of Champions.
On paper, they read very much the same; the narrator (Leon Trout, compared to Kurt Vonnegut himself) immediately reveals the climax of the story. Where Breakfast Of Champions had random sketches and images inserted into the narrative, Galápagos utilizes literary quotations. The astute Galápagos reader will also come across multiple references and allusions to Breakfast Of Champions; narrator Leon Trout is the son of reoccurring character Kilgore Trout, we are allotted a quick snapshot into the home life of Dwayne Hoover in Midland City, Ohio, and meet yet another Kazak, which yet again proves to be same name, different dog.
This, truly, is where the similarities end, however. Thematically, the books are very different, and it is difficult to envision a shared universe where both stories can coexist simultaneously. At face value, Galápagos is a quasi-apocalyptic story about the miraculous survival of a select few that will go on to comprise the human race, and the evolutionary adaptation that the next million years will carry. However, Galápagos is much more than that; on a deeper level, it is a direct examination of humanity and regret, the human brain, and nature vs. nurture.
Vonnegut tells you right from the start how the book is going to end; this is neither a plot-driven, nor character-driven story. All that matters is the content; and Vonnegut once again finds the perfect balance of satire and narrative. I would strongly recommend checking your content warnings before picking this book up.
On paper, they read very much the same; the narrator (Leon Trout, compared to Kurt Vonnegut himself) immediately reveals the climax of the story. Where Breakfast Of Champions had random sketches and images inserted into the narrative, Galápagos utilizes literary quotations. The astute Galápagos reader will also come across multiple references and allusions to Breakfast Of Champions; narrator Leon Trout is the son of reoccurring character Kilgore Trout, we are allotted a quick snapshot into the home life of Dwayne Hoover in Midland City, Ohio, and meet yet another Kazak, which yet again proves to be same name, different dog.
This, truly, is where the similarities end, however. Thematically, the books are very different, and it is difficult to envision a shared universe where both stories can coexist simultaneously. At face value, Galápagos is a quasi-apocalyptic story about the miraculous survival of a select few that will go on to comprise the human race, and the evolutionary adaptation that the next million years will carry. However, Galápagos is much more than that; on a deeper level, it is a direct examination of humanity and regret, the human brain, and nature vs. nurture.
Vonnegut tells you right from the start how the book is going to end; this is neither a plot-driven, nor character-driven story. All that matters is the content; and Vonnegut once again finds the perfect balance of satire and narrative. I would strongly recommend checking your content warnings before picking this book up.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Infertility, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Cancer, Death, Incest, Pedophilia, Sexual content, War, Suicide, and Terminal illness
Minor: Alcohol, Abortion, Animal cruelty, and Animal death
abbruzzese's review against another edition
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
As long as they killed people with conventional rather than nuclear weapons, they were praised as humanitarian statesmen. As long as they did not use nuclear weapons, it appeared, nobody was going to give the right name to all the killing that had been going on since the end of the Second World War, which was surely “World War Three."
strange and funny, if a bit confusing at times. so much of the book felt like world-building, like the waiting period before the story really starts. but the pacing works itself out, so it's alright. didn't really understand the ending, but i'm sure it's quite clever if you do.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Incest, and War
Minor: Cancer, Cannibalism, Gun violence, Suicide attempt, Pedophilia, and Racism
bluejayreads's review against another edition
I actually got pretty far though this one. It was definitely weird, but very creative and for a while I was curious about what happened. But then it got repetitive.
This book has a main cast of characters, and what I'm calling "Plot A" for convenience is set in a hotel in Ecuador, narrated by an unnamed person who might be from the future or immortal or dead or all three - it's up to you to put together the pieces about them. Many of the characters end up dead before the end, which the narrator makes sure to announce early on. Since the narrator is either way in the future or possibly outside of time, there is very little linear structure to the way the story is told. It flips though our main cast in Ecuador, their pasts, their futures, tangents about a few minor characters, and humanity a million years after the early 1980s when Plot A is set.
And it actually kind of worked. It was weird jumping between Plot A in 1980s Ecuador during a global economic collapse, each of the characters' pasts that brought them there, their futures (mainly who they had children with and how they died), and bits of how humanity functions a million years on. The narrator kept stressing that these people at the hotel - including a widow, a con man, a Japanese couple, a millionaire and his daughter, a ship's captain whose rank was purely decorative, and six native Ecuadorian girls recently escaped from their pimp - were the ancestors of the entire human race, and I was very curious about what happened to the rest of the world.
And then nothing ever progressed. We got characters' backstories, sure, and brief vignettes about their life after whatever was going to happen happened, little hints and mentions of what did happen and what humans evolved into a million years later, and interspersed though that is the Big Important Point of the book - that human evolution has made human brains so big that they can do stupid and counterproductive things like lie, and invent deadly weapons, and cause economic collapse by stopping believing in the value of currency, and make you feel suicidal, and other such things that could get in the way of popping out babies to continue the species which is the entire point of everything.
On one hand, it's both accurate and an interesting philosophical idea. Human brains can malfunction in many weird ways that harm our individual survival (I say this as an owner of a somewhat malfunctioning brain myself), we do believe in a lot of imaginary things like currency and gender roles, and reproduction is the entire goal of evolution. However, after a while the narrator harping on this idea got obnoxious. Every time anyone did anything that wasn't strictly about survival or reproduction, the narrator would go on about how their big brain made them do it and aren't we glad our brains evolved to be smaller in the future? It also focused a lot on reproductive activity and how exactly our main cast's genes went on to become the new, smaller-brained version of humanity. Which got a little uncomfortable at times because the native Ecuadorian girls were all minors during Plot A.
It's not a bad idea, really. I quite enjoyed it for a while. But eventually it got old and I got annoyed. I think this would have worked much better as a short story or a novella to cut out all the repetition that annoyed me. But in its current form, 63% is about all I care to read.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Pedophilia
Minor: Abandonment, Blood, Cancer, and Incest
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