The three-pound human brain is the most destructive force on this planet. Unless you distract it our brains will go on a rampage seeking importance, alcohol and self-esteem. There are some things that work well like mindfulness but the best distraction people have found is to make babies.

It was humanity’s ability to heal so quickly, by means of babies

Then that lead to the problem of more brains and now there are a lot of brains and we probably don’t need them all but since we are all here Vonnegut's mantra applies: live as if your actions can affect the things around you, be kind.

---

Need I tell you that this once beautiful and nourishing planet when viewed from the air now resembles…apparent cancers, growing for the sake of growth alone, and consuming all and poisoning all…
Need I tell you that these animals have made such a botch of things that they can no longer imagine decent lives for their own grandchildren…
Like the people on this accursed ship, my boy, they are led by captains who have no charts or compasses, and who deal from minute to minute with no problem more substantial than how to protect their self-esteem

---

In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart

Як мені подобається цей двіж Воннеґута. Моя четверта книга автора і також сподобалась, як і інші. Вони в нього настільки дивні і несерйозно серйозні, що неможливо відірватися.
А коли закриваєш книгу в кінці, то лише одна думка в голові: «Що це було і чому воно кайфове?»

Θα το χαρακτήριζα ως ένα μυθιστόρημα βαθιά διδακτικό, ιδιαίτερο και περίεργο, πού σκοπό έχει να προβληματίσει και να προσεγγίσει, με τον δικό του χιουμοριστικό τρόπο, την εξέλιξη του ανθρώπου ανά τα χρόνια.

Εν συντομία, το βιβλίο αφορά τις ζωές μίας ομάδας ανθρώπων, οι οποίοι καταλήγουν σε ένα νησί των Γκαλαπάγκος. Κατά τον Vonnegut, η πηγή των προβλημάτων τους που έρχονται στην επιφάνεια, είναι ο μεγάλος εγκέφαλος του ανθρώπινου είδους, πού σκέφτεται εγωιστικά και θέτει το ίδιο του το είδος υπό απειλή.

Πολύ ενδιαφέρουσες απόψεις για την επίδραση του ανθρώπου στις σημερινές κοινωνίες, τον ρόλο της επιστήμης, την ανεξέλεγκτη κατακρεούργηση του φυσικού περιβάλλοντος, καθώς και την σημασία της διαιώνισης του είδους. Όλα αυτά, δοσμένα με μια γλώσσα απλή και καθόλου κουραστική, πού αν και θα μπορούσε να είναι λυρική και περιγραφική, ο συγγραφέας πετυχαίνει να προβληματίσει τον αναγνώστη με ευκολία.

Ξεχωριστό και περίεργο (με την καλή έννοια) ανάγνωσμα, διαβάζεται ευχάριστα και με ενδιαφέρον, αν και θεωρώ θα ενθουσιάσει περισσότερο τα άτομα πού αρέσκονται σε θέματα περί εξέλιξης του ανθρώπου με μια χιουμοριστική χροιά.

"Galapagos" is, as far as I can tell, when Kurt Vonnegut decided to become "Kurt Vonnegut." This book feels like an imperfect parody of Vonnegut's style. It's not _bad_, per se, it's just not very good. Narrated from 1 million years in the future, by Kilgore Trout's son, this book has flashes of real resonance, like when Leon Trout speaks of his time in Vietnam. All in all, however, the entire thing feels misanthropic in a way that definitely would have appealed to me back in junior high, but feels rather fake and forced 15 years later. Stick to "Cat's Cradle" and "Slaughterhouse-5", I'd say.

[7/10]

The ship, a fragment detached from the earth,
went on lonely and swift like a small planet.

I love to come across Joseph Conrad quotes, and the one above is eminently appropriate as a one line review of Galapagos . The whole Earth is reduced in this novel to a single vessel, a modern Noah's Ark carrying the last survivors of the human race to the haven of the Galapagos Islands. By placing the action of the novel in 1986, only one year into the future considering the date of publication, Vonnegut hopes to ring the alarm bells that we are on the brink of extinction. He wipes out humanity by a double punch of a global financial crash ( It was all in the people's heads. People had simply changed their opinions of paper wealth, but, for all practical purposes, the planet might as well have been knocked out of orbit by a meteor the size of Luxembourg.) and a widespread AIDS type epidemic that affects reproduction. Only the extreme isolation of the Galapagos Islands can protect the handful of passengers from infection and provide them with the food they need to survive. Reproduction and repopulation are a dream for the distant future.

The ship is called "Bahia de Darwin", originally a pleasure cruiser for the jet set, now the decrepit refuge for a ragtag band that somehow includes only one male (the Captain), and several females with a varied genetic background. The name of the ship is important, because Vonnegut wants to talk to us about evolution, and the Galapagos Islands were the catalyst that started Charles Darwin on the path to his Evolution of Species theory. In order to illustrate his point, Vonnegut uses some artistic licence, mostly focusing on how the change is driven by the environment. When humans destroyed the planet with their pollution and waste, Nature must intervene to adapt them to more scarce resources, and at the same time preventing them from a repeat of the mistakes that caused the 1986 apocalypse.

Need I tell you that this once beautiful and nourishing planet when viewed from the air now resembles the diseased organs of poor Roy Hepburn when exposed at his autopsy, and that the apparent cancers, growing for the sake of growth alone, and consuming all and poisoning all, are the cities of your beloved human beings?

The author, with his usual acerbic wit, blames all our troubles on our oversized brains.

So I have to say that human brains back then had become such copious and irresponsible generators of suggestions as to what might be done with life, that they made acting for the benefit of future generations seem one of many arbitrary games which might be played by narrow enthusiasts - like poker or polo or the bond market, or the writing of science-fiction novels.

A more drastic solution is needed, since most of the population scorns science-fiction as escapist non-sense with lightsabers and spaceships. Vonnegut still believes in giving the human race another chance, but I'm not sure I want to live in the future as he imagined it .  since our big brains got us into trouble, evolution makes sure they are shrunk back until they provide only for feeding and reproduction. Hands are also troublesome since they make and use weapons, so OFF with the Hands! To make a million year story short, the future humans are dolphin-like aquatic mammals with flippers.

I was already a fan of Vonnegut before reading Galapagos, but this comes at a price. I am probably too familiar by now with his style and his brand of black humor, so I am more aware of the other elements of the novel. I can understand how a five star rating can be granted, but, honestly, for me the present story falls a bit short of his usual high standards. Too much time is spent in the build-up to the journey to the islands, the same point about irresponsibility in preserving the natural resources is made once too often, and even the key issue of the Big Bad Brains is sort of hammered in, as if we are too thick headed to get it. (Ok, he has a point here: I have started debating deforestation, oil shortage and fishing grounds depletion back in the early seventies, and still nobody does anything about it. Add global warming to the list, and I begin to wonder if the Earth wouldn't do better in the long run witthout humans). Even the narrative structure, which technically is a very long flashback from a million years into the future, turns out to be in fact a series of flash-forwards, as the narrator keeps foreshadowing past-future events, like telling us with an asterix that this or that character will soon die. Vonnegut has used the technique in many of his other novels, but in the present case, it felt more gimmicky than original.

Since I mention the narrator, for a long part of the novel his identity and his current status (alive / dead / half-alive?) is left vague, undefined. I was ambivalent about him also, since it introduces a supernatural element into what I wanted to be a more science-oriented story about genetics and evolution. His background is filled in in very small increments, slowly building up to a final revelation that most readers would have gueesed at long before .  he's a ghost, a Vietnam veteran and the son of one of the recurring characters, or alter-egos, of Vonnegut : the science-fiction author Kilgore Trout.
I have chosen to be a ghost because the job carried with it, as a fringe benefit, license to read minds, to learn the truth of people's pasts, to see through walls, to be many places all at once, to learn in depth how this or that situation had come to be structured as it was, and to have access to all human knowledge.

I did end up liking the narrator by the last page, mainly for two ideas that he embraces as a conclusion of his million-year journey. The first one is the reason he gives for hanging around such a long time:

The question the blue tunnel implies by appearing is one only I can answer: Have I at last exhausted my curiosity as to what life is all about?

As long as we can ask ourselves this question, there is still hope for the future. The second idea that closes Galapagos is in fact a repetition of the opening stanza, and the reason Kurt Vonnegut remains one of my favorite authors, regardless of my recent nitpickings. He is often cynical and bitter, but I was never in doubt that he is a true humanist, and an optimist, or he wouldn't have spent so much effort in trying to educate us to be better persons.

In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.
tAnne Frank

P.S. I forgot another reason to love the novel: BOOBIES!

Kurt Vonnegut, author of "Cat's Cradle" and "Breakfast of Champions," among others, is one of my favorite authors.
When I picked up this one at my local used book-store, I began reading it immediately.
This book is a satire, revolving around themes of evolution and humans. In "Galapagos," a group of varied people are heading to the Galapagos Islands on a vacation cruise, but are stranded there and left as the only remaining humans on earth, due to a natural disaster which exterminates everyone else.
Like all of Vonnegut's works, this one jumps from topic to topic, person to person, and setting to setting. It can be a bit confusing, but Vonnegut's concise and clear wording catch up to the story, and keep the reader informed.
The plot focuses almost entirely on how people got to the island from which all human life evolved (into seals), not on humans after evolving into another species. The back cover of my edition suggested differently, so this book wasn't exactly what I was expecting.
If you would like to be picky, you could say that this book is just a bunch of talking, without actually going anywhere. And this is not entirely false... Any other writer would never have been able to pull this off, but Vonnegut seems to marvelously hover on the edge of utter boredom and destruction of his plot, all the while spinning it around into entertaining, quite enjoyable reading. It is almost baffling. After finishing this book, I had to think for a moment to figure out exactly why I liked it. There wasn't even a plot!
But, let this only serve as a testimony to the author's brilliance.
This book is very clever, and humorous, and written in a simple, stating-the-obvious, entertaining sort of way.
Underneath the light-hearted wording, however, lies a much deeper message. What is humanity? Is the world better off without humans? Do our "big brains," as Vonnegut here calls them, do us more harm than good?
Vonnegut has constructed yet another sharply insightful book.

Galápagos, Kurt Vonnegut

Galápagos is the eleventh novel written by American author Kurt Vonnegut. The novel questions the merit of the human brain from an evolutionary perspective. The title is both a reference to the islands on which part of the story plays out, and a tribute to Charles Darwin on whose theory Vonnegut relies to reach his own conclusions. It was first published in 1985 by Delacorte Press.

Main characters:
Leon Trout, dead narrator and son of Kilgore Trout
Hernando Cruz, first mate of the Bahía de Darwin
Mary Hepburn, an American widow who teaches at Ilium High School
Roy Hepburn, Mary's husband who died in 1985 from a brain tumor
Akiko Hiroguchi, the daughter of Hisako that will be born with fur covering her entire body
Hisako Hiroguchi, a teacher of ikebana and Zenji's pregnant wife
Zenji Hiroguchi, a Japanese computer genius who invented the voice translator Gokubi and its successor Mandarax
Bobby King, publicity man and organizer of the "Nature Cruise of the Century"
Andrew MacIntosh, an American financier and adventurer of great inherited wealth
Selena MacIntosh, Andrew's blind daughter, eighteen years old
Jesús Ortiz, a talented Inca waiter who looks up to wealthy and powerful people
Adolf von Kleist, captain of Bahía de Darwin who doesn't really know how to steer the ship
Siegfried von Kleist, brother of Adolf and carrier of Huntington's chorea who temporarily takes care of the reception at hotel El Dorado
James Wait, a 35-year-old American swindler
Pvt. Geraldo Delgado, an Ecuadorian soldier

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: ماه فوریه سال1994میلادی

عنوان: گالاپاگوس؛ نویسنده: کرت ونه گات؛ مترجم: علی اصغر بهرامی؛ تهران، مروارید، سال1382؛ در341ص؛ شابک9645881412؛ عنوان دیگر مجمع الجزایر گالاپاگوس؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 20م

طنز تلخ، روایت نابودی نسل انسان امروزی؛ عنوان کتاب از نام «مجمع‌ الجزایر گالاپاگوس»، که بخشی از داستان در آنجا می‌گذرد، برگرفته شده؛ داستان گروه کوچکی از افرادی است، که پس از یک بحران بزرگ اقتصادی، به سفری دریایی رفته، و کشتی‌شان در جزیره ی خیالی «سانتا روزالیا» در «مجمع‌ الجزایر گالاپاگوس»، خراب می‌شود؛ سپس یک بیماری مسری، تمامی انسان‌های روی کره زمین را نابارور می‌کند، البته به‌ جز افرادی که در جزیره ی «سانتا روزالیا» گرفتار شده‌ اند؛ در چندین میلیون سال، بازماندگان این افراد، که تنها نمونه‌ های انسان‌های باقی‌مانده در زمین هستند، به گونه‌ ای خزدار شبیه به فک‌های دریایی، که قادر به راه رفتن بر روی دو پا نیز هست، تبدیل می‌شوند؛ آنها پوزه‌ ای با دندان، برای شکار ماهی، جمجمه‌ ای دگرگون‌ شده و دستانی شبیه به باله، به همراه انگشت پیدا می‌کنند

راوی داستان، روح سرگردان «لئون تروتسکی تراوت» فرزند «کیلگور تراوت» (نویسنده علمی-تخیلی‌نویسی که «ونه‌ گات» خود آنرا آفریده و در کتاب‌هایش از او و داستان‌هایش نام می‌برد) است؛ که چند سال آخر زندگی انسان‌ها را تماشا می‌کند؛ لئون یک سرباز جنگ ویتنام بوده، که به خاطر کشتارها ناراحت شده، و از خدمت فرار می‌کند و به سوئد پناهنده می‌شود. او به کارگر کشتی‌ سازی تبدیل می‌شود، و در هنگام ساخت کشتی به یاد «داروین»، بر اثر حادثه‌ ای می‌میرد؛ این کشتی همانی است که بعدها در سفر طبیعی سده بکار گرفته می‌شود؛ سفری که در هنگام بحران اقتصادی، برای برخی افراد مشهور برگزار شده‌ بود، تا از «جزایر گالاپاگوس» دیدن کنند، و سرانجام همین کشتی بود که نسل انسان‌ها را از خطر انقراض نجات داد؛ «کیلگور تراوت» چهار بار بر پسرش حاضر، و از او می‌خواهد که به تونل آبی‌رنگ، که او را به جهان دیگر وارد می‌کند، بیاید اما «لئون» نمی‌پذیرد؛ در بار آخر او هشدار می‌دهد که اگر وارد نشود، او و تونل، تا یک میلیون سال دیگر نمی‌آیند، که همین باعث می‌شود که برای یک میلیون سال به مشاهده ی تغییر آهسته ی انسان‌های باقی‌مانده، به پستانداران آبزی بپردازد؛ این پروسه ی تغییر، از یک زن ژاپنی آغاز می‌شود، که دختر بزرگ یکی از بازماندگان واقعه ی بمباران اتمی هیروشیما بوده‌؛ او در جزیره، دختری با بدنی پوشیده از خز بدنیا می‌آورد؛ «لئون تراوت» می‌گوید که تمام مصیبت‌های انسان از «تنها تبهکار داستان من: مغز بیش‌ از اندازه بزرگ انسان» است؛ خوشبختانه، انتخاب طبیعی این مشکل را حل می‌کند، چون در آن جزایر کسی موفق است که بتواند به خوبی، و با سرعت در آب شنا کند، و این با داشتن سَرِ کوچک‌تر میسر است، برای اینکه با جریان آب کمتر برابری کند

شخصیت ها: «لئون تروت - راوی داستان که خیلی پیشتر مرده‌ است؛ او فرزند کیلگور تراوت، نویسنده داستان‌های علمی‌ تخیلی است که از کاراکترهای تقریباً ثابت بیشتر کتاب‌های ونه‌ گات اس»؛ «هرناندو کروز»؛ «ماری هپبورن - بیوه‌ ای آمریکایی که در دبیرستانی در شهر ایلیوم درس می‌دهد»؛ «روی هپبورن - شوهر ماری هپبورن که در سال1985میلادی بر اثر تومور مغزی درگذشت»؛ «آکیکو هیروگوچی - دختر هیساکو که با بدنی پوشیده از خز به دنیا آمد»؛ «هیساکو هیروگوچی - معلم ایکبانا و همسر باردار زنجی»؛ «زنجی هیروگوچی - نابغه کامپیوتر ژاپنی که دستگاه سخنگوی ترجمه همزمان را با نام گوکوبی اختراع کرده‌ است، نسل بعدی آنرا نیز با نام مانداراکس ساخته‌ است»؛ «بابی کینگ - سازمان‌ دهنده سفر طبیعی قرن»؛ «اندرو مکینتاش - یک سرمایه‌ گذار آمریکایی و ماجراجویی پولدار»؛ «سلنا مکینتاش - دختر هجده ساله نابینای اندرو»؛ «آدولف ون کلیست - کاپیتان کشتی به یاد داروین که در واقع اصلاً نمی‌داند که کشتی را چطور هدایت کند»؛ «زیگفرید ون کلیست - برادر آدولف که بطور موقت در پذیرش هتل الدوررادو کار می‌کند»؛ «جیمز ویت - یک کلاهبردار سی و پنجساله آمریکایی»؛ «سرباز جرالدو دلگادو - یک سرباز اکوادوری»؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 24/11/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 02/11/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

This is another classic author with pacing I just can't stand. By Chapter Four, we know the book is being written far into the future, that the character we know has booked a cruise to these islands, and that Darwin was once there. Our character is also a something of a con man. We know all of this because the author has told us in exposition. Not a single thing has happened at all. I still feel like I'd like to know Vonnegut better, but this audiobook was going to make me pass out and crash on the highway.

As a fan of sarcasm, cynicism, pessimism, and nihilism (yup, I'm fun at parties), as well as an absurdist plot, I'm a smitten-kitten when it comes to Vonnegut. However, I'm not in love with Galapagos. In deep like? Yes, but, for me, the gold standard when it comes to Vonnegut is Cat's Cradle, followed by Mother Night. I did, however, like Galapagos better than Slaughterhouse-Five.

Galapagos is set one million years after 1986, when the world as we know it ended and, through a series of fluke events, one man and several women are stranded on the island of Santa Rosalia in the Galapagos. The end of civilization was brought about by mankind's "big brains" (although not necessarily by man himself, as man is fundamentally good--just led astray by his inability to control his thoughts and his imagination), along with the help of a bacteria that leaves all the women of the world sterile. However, on the secluded island of Santa Rosalia, the female castaways still young enough to produce are spared and, with an unwilling sire and a little help from a high school biology teacher, they are all impregnated. Thus, life continues to flourish on Santa Rosalia. Not only that, but after millions of years, mankind has evolved so that they have smaller brains, flippers for hands, and a lifespan of 30 years (at which point we're easy prey for sharks and killer whales). Welcome to utopia! With our Darwinian advancements, we no longer have the ability to lie, cheat, steal, etc. We also lack the capacity for simple thought or creativity of any kind. (Admittedly, it's a shit utopia, as far as utopias go, and I myself would gladly just swim out to meet the sharks.)

If you think I've just divulged several plot spoilers, I haven't. You learn all this at the beginning and the rest of the novel circles itself like a dog chasing its tail as these events are told over and over again, but new details are added with each retelling. This structure could become repetitive for some readers, but didn't really bother me. As with most Vonnegut works, fragmented and nonlinear narrative is to be expected, as is the theme of "people are dumb asses." However, there is hope in this cautionary tale--if we learn to rein in our big brains, then maybe we'll be spared the evolutionary chain of events that lead to the utopian existence of lounging around on a beach somewhere, clapping our flippers together while chewing seaweed cud and hoping for some seal-like lovin' before the sharks come for us. And I think that's a lesson we can all learn from, don't you?

Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder

Stephen Jay Gould used to assign this novel to his students at Harvard. Probably for some introductory paleontology course or other. Since I admire SJG’s essays I’ve always wanted to read Galápagos. Two things: most if not all of Vonnegut’s novels feature a highly intrusive narrator—God-like—marshaling his patterns. E.M. Forster doesn’t hold a candle to Vonnegut for sheer intrusiveness. Second, Vonnegut uses a relentless list of referents—in this book, big human brains, natural selection, marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies, etc.—and if he’s ever at a loss in his narrative he simply returns to an element in this pattern to propel the narrative. It’s a pretty good device. This makes for a text that is highly self-referential yet not one cut off from world events. The time is one million years from now. Humans have devolved into sea-going creatures with flippers where their hands used to be and much smaller brains, since a streamlined body is more likely to be successful in the hunt for fish. The world as we know it is long gone. As with whales, once land animals, probably some type of ruminant, humans are now seagoing, and once again part of the food chain. There’s no more high tech, no money, no society, no language, no novels, no 24/7 sexual arousal. Now humans have devolved to the states of musth and rut like most other mammals. The book is basically about the small human multi-racial contingent that interbreeds after the apocalypse (which is tacit, never discussed) and becomes future humankind’s (such as it is) genetic ancestors. The narrator is a ghost. It’s quite a farrago.

I just really, really regret not ever reading Vonnegut as a teenager. Would've been the perfect time. It's still good now, but I feel a bit like I have to time-travel while reading it in order to appreciate it more. I've also been told that this is not exactly the best Vonnegut to start with, especially as a full-grown adult with pretentious literary sensibility and high intellectual expectations. Still, I enjoyed it quite a bit. I like the wildly speculative and I'm a fetishist of sorts for evolutionary theory, even of the armchair variety.

Qualche giorno fa Vonnegut avrebbe compiuto i 100 anni, veneranda età che molti esseri umani contemporanei pagherebbero fior fior di danari, per possederla. Età che ti farebbe entrare negli annali del guinness dei primati e... ma sto sforando, torniamo a bomba!
Nel 1986 Kurt scrisse questo romanzo che io farei leggere a tutti, ma soprattutto ai governanti, nello specifico nella ristretta cerchia del Grandi del Pianeta. Che poi mi son sempre chiesto perchè ci debbano essere dei Grandi? Questo implicherebbe che ci siano dei Piccoli, nel senso di cervelli o cosa? Forse l'ego smisurato oppure la smania di potere? Insomma tutte quelle nefandezze dell'animo umano, il buon Kurt le conosceva più che bene e qui impacchetta un romanzo ironico ed al tempo stesso malinconico su questi esseri, che popolano il pianeta Terra, da non molto che qualche attimo nella storia dell'Universo e che ne stanno sconvolgendo il naturale procedere. Ovviamente non dell'Universo che si starà facendo un bella e grassa risata a guardare questi esserini irrequieti e spavaldi e nemmeno la povera Terra che un po' si compiange della sorte dei suoi figli troppo sicuri di se stessi, da non rendersi conto della catastrofe imminente che stanno attuando, e quindi la povera Terra che nel contempo si è preso un brutto raffreddore, per guarire spazzerà via tutto compreso questi esserini carini, ma anche troppo egoisti.
C'è tutto Vonnegut in questo romanzo: antimilitarismo, come non poteva esserci, tutte le sue opere ne sono permeate, lui che ha vissuto in prima persona la furia della guerra, poi antispecismo, antirazzismo, quell'innato timore verso il consumo sfrenato e senza remore, verso il rapido svolgersi delle tecnologie che tutto dovrebbero risolvere, sarà poi proprio così?
Kurt, come racconti tu dell'umanità, nessuno mai...