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polyvoda_i's review against another edition
5.0
спочатку не зайшло. але потім я вже доріс до цієї книжечки. і яка вона чудова.
оповідь йде від духа, який вже на землі більше мільйона років.
він розповідає про людей які пережили фінансову кризу і втекли від мікробів, через які люди вже не могли розмножуватися.
персонажі чудернацькі і цікаві.
багато іронії. вонеґут висміює розмір.
і ще каже нам, пора задуматися про екологію, та та.
оповідь йде від духа, який вже на землі більше мільйона років.
він розповідає про людей які пережили фінансову кризу і втекли від мікробів, через які люди вже не могли розмножуватися.
персонажі чудернацькі і цікаві.
багато іронії. вонеґут висміює розмір.
і ще каже нам, пора задуматися про екологію, та та.
adam_reads's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
In which Vonnegut tackles the consequences of evolution and the creation of society, not to mention the Industrial Revolution, and even addresses the coming of artificial intelligence.
“He was eaten by a hammerhead shark…a design perfected by the law of natural selection many millions of years ago…it surely did not need a bigger brain.
What was a it going to do with a bigger brain? Compose Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony?”
“He was eaten by a hammerhead shark…a design perfected by the law of natural selection many millions of years ago…it surely did not need a bigger brain.
What was a it going to do with a bigger brain? Compose Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony?”
mbloudoff's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Very cool premise! Unfortunately, the plot was very slow and stagnated about halfway through. The ending was abrupt and unsatisfying.
theuncultured's review against another edition
4.0
I'm glad I stuck with this book even though nothing really happened in the first 100 pages or so. The repetition of the first part was daunting and the characters were making a lot of noise but no movement. Luckily, that all changed as the story got wilder and a little more intense. So much so that I finished the rest of it in one sitting. The book is filled to the brim with crazy ideas and good storytelling. I wanted to read it because I'd dreamed about visiting the Galápagos Islands and thought it would bring me closer to that imagery. Well, it didn't, but it was worth my time.
iguanasaur's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
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? It's complicated
3.75
ericispublius's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Death, Gun violence, Incest, Misogyny, Racism, Suicide, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Pandemic/Epidemic
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Rape, Grief, Alcohol, Colonisation, and War
laserdiscreader's review against another edition
Got distracted by other books. Will revisit
murakamiangel's review against another edition
funny
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
possumghost's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
smithmick14's review against another edition
Perhaps thematically in line with this book, the Goodreads app crashed when I was a few paragraphs into a review. I think Vonnegut would’ve laughed pretty hard at that.
Anyway, this book was a good one. It felt full of really tightly coupled and intentional imagery surrounding some of Vonnegut’s favorite themes. The group of Kanka-bono women being progenitors of a new human race with the maternal aid and engineering of Mary Hepburn filling both the role of Gaia and possibly Eve. The intelligent translation device being as a good as a doorstop when faced with a language that would become humanity’s only one. Its pathetic attempts to add meaning through quotes. The impotence of a captain steering mankind without a faint clue how to do anything other than save himself from embarrassment. (Tangentially, wow, Triangle of Sadness really owes it all to this book lol).
Vonnegut, as always, blends the profane into the divine and makes both uncomfortably unpalatable at random times. It feels hard to gather a good unifying theory of this book because the book, in so many ways, is about the silly folly of man trying to do exactly that in the face of our genetic and genealogical influences.
Evolution as an unfeeling random number generator was likely an image that tickled Vonnegut’s cynical, nihilistic-leaning side. Perhaps Kilgore Trout is that side of him. I’ll talk in a bit about how he might’ve not liked that side of himself. Galápagos felt like a response to Vonnegut’s having read Charles Darwin’s Voyages on the H.M.S Beagle and in a way that only he could, deciding that it’s a pretty hilarious book.
But despite seeming so sour on humanity this book is clearly structured by a tension between Nihilism and Optimism. And throughout we can see which attitudes in our world Vonnegut associated with each. This was pretty clear in the spectral narrator’s description of his mother and father’s conflicting worldviews. Vonnegut seems to have built a character strung between a hatred of his paternal unfeeling negativity and his mother’s blind positivity. Perhaps Vonnegut himself ultimately reached some sort of compromise between a positive and negative view of humanity through his Postmodern way to describe the world. He seems to be pretty good at observing and describing it in all its random tragedy and comedy.
I think his having a laugh at humanity’s designs being imposed on unfeeling Darwinism is as fun of a ride as any of his other books to date.
Anyway, this book was a good one. It felt full of really tightly coupled and intentional imagery surrounding some of Vonnegut’s favorite themes. The group of Kanka-bono women being progenitors of a new human race with the maternal aid and engineering of Mary Hepburn filling both the role of Gaia and possibly Eve. The intelligent translation device being as a good as a doorstop when faced with a language that would become humanity’s only one. Its pathetic attempts to add meaning through quotes. The impotence of a captain steering mankind without a faint clue how to do anything other than save himself from embarrassment. (Tangentially, wow, Triangle of Sadness really owes it all to this book lol).
Vonnegut, as always, blends the profane into the divine and makes both uncomfortably unpalatable at random times. It feels hard to gather a good unifying theory of this book because the book, in so many ways, is about the silly folly of man trying to do exactly that in the face of our genetic and genealogical influences.
Evolution as an unfeeling random number generator was likely an image that tickled Vonnegut’s cynical, nihilistic-leaning side. Perhaps Kilgore Trout is that side of him. I’ll talk in a bit about how he might’ve not liked that side of himself. Galápagos felt like a response to Vonnegut’s having read Charles Darwin’s Voyages on the H.M.S Beagle and in a way that only he could, deciding that it’s a pretty hilarious book.
But despite seeming so sour on humanity this book is clearly structured by a tension between Nihilism and Optimism. And throughout we can see which attitudes in our world Vonnegut associated with each. This was pretty clear in the spectral narrator’s description of his mother and father’s conflicting worldviews. Vonnegut seems to have built a character strung between a hatred of his paternal unfeeling negativity and his mother’s blind positivity. Perhaps Vonnegut himself ultimately reached some sort of compromise between a positive and negative view of humanity through his Postmodern way to describe the world. He seems to be pretty good at observing and describing it in all its random tragedy and comedy.
I think his having a laugh at humanity’s designs being imposed on unfeeling Darwinism is as fun of a ride as any of his other books to date.