At first I didn't get into this book, and I had put it down and forgotten about it. Recently I spotted it on my bookshelf and, needing something new to read when I finished my last book, I grabbed Timequake. I read it mostly on the train thinking that would force me to get over the hump I couldn't overtake a couple years ago when I first tried to read it. I was surprised this time around that I had ever put it down. It's extremely witty; full of humor and beauty and saddness, but told in a refreshing, lighthearted way.

I was waiting throughout the book for something to "happen" - I guess I was confusing it with another Vonnegut book I had started and then gave up on. But by the end of this book, I really didn't care that very little "happened". I enjoyed learning about Vonnegut's life, his family, the little anecdotes that only he could put such a witty, quirky twist on. It saddens me that this was his last book, but it makes sense. It seems that by the end he has come to terms with, well, being old, and one might even say being ready for death; because he has enojoyed life so much, and found humor and "soul" out of the happy and even the sad parts of life.

Avete presente quella tipica scena da cliché cinematografico stra abusata che ha fatto la fortuna di film come Forrest Gump?
Si, quella scena in cui voi state seduti su una panchina in un parco ed ad un certo punto si avvicina un tizio che comincia a parlarvi della sua vita...
Immaginatevi lì per un attimo...
Ecco avvicinarsi un vecchietto di 74 anni che non vede l'ora di fare quattro chiacchiere con qualcuno...
Si siede, si schiarisce la gola...
E voi non vedete l'ora di andare via, un po' come succede con Homer Simpson quando non riesce a reggere un secondo delle storie di guerra del padre.
Una reazione che ci può anche stare ma...
Quel vecchietto, mio caro panchinaro, è Kurt Vonnegut, uno con cui non ti potresti annoiare mai nella vita!

Bittersweet to say this is the last of his novels that I've read and what a one to end on. It reads like an auto biography but is still sarcastic as ever. Interesting take on how history repeats itself. The last few pages and epilouge almost feel like both him and his alter ego Kilgore Trout are saying goodbye to the reader and the world. I absolutely love this man's writing and just want to re read all of his work again and again until I decipher them all. This one just might be my new favorite. I'll have to give it a few more reads to truly decide.

Not your typical Vonnegut fair. This is less a novel and more a synopsis for two failed novels and accounts of the authors life. Vonnegut breaks the fourth wall. Still pretty good though and a must for his fans.

Timequake is a fun short story consisting of idiosyncratic arrangements in horizontal lines, with ink on bleached and flattened wood pulp, of twenty-six phonetic symbols, ten numbers, and about eight punctuation marks. No - I didn’t make that up… one of a number of recurring Vonnegut-isms sprinkled into the book. Where Slaughterhouse Five’s tagline was “So it Goes” in this one KV reused lots of fun little sayings including
- ‘Ting-a-Ling’,
- ‘WWII was society’s second unsuccessful attempt to commit suicide’
- ‘You don’t want to look like something the cat dragged in’
- That’s “No laughing matter”
- “I never asked to be born in the first place.”
- An oft repeated (that i will let you read for yourself) description of the miracle of birth

A tangled mess of fantasy and memoir. While the standard Vonnegutian turn of phrase is ever-present and somewhat enjoyable, it’s too difficult to follow a thought through two or more sentences and I don’t really understand why they let him publish the damn thing.

Video Review on YouTube

Most of my thoughts are in the video above or on instagram, here are some other things. GoodReads reviews are now becoming more of my book diary than any other output.

This was my first buddy read and it was quite nice to have someone to talk to about the themes. However, the story is such a jumble and has barely any plot, which means that we had to talk more about the themes than the actual plot. I mean to say this would be A TERRIBLE book club read.

Also, having read Timequake I'm now wondering whether what we value in Kurt Vonnegut's style — Kilgore Trout, his anecdotes, and his "broken paragraph structure" — are really a PTSD-like manifestation of war memories. Are we valuing Kurt's coping mechanisms in writing? Finding entertainment in his healing? And that makes me wonder whether the same is true of all fiction. Are we finding comfort in reading therapeutic exercises of strangers? I think it's a more pertinent question for Timequake than any other book, as contains more of his history and reflections than any other novel I've read. At least with other Vonnegut novels you might like them for the story alone, for instance The Sirens of Titan or Cat's Cradle. This very much feels like a story with only an ending, no beginning or middle, that mostly takes place in the mind of the author.

Final thought. When I first read Breakfast of Champions I thought to myself it would be really cool if there was just one book with only Kilgore Trout's best Scifi stories. They were always so wacky and fun, I thought that a book only containing them would be funny even if it did not make a lot of sense. This is what I hoped Timequake would be, but Kilgore Trout in this book bizarrely seems like Kurt himself, and he doesn't tell his own stories. I wonder whether in this last book Kurt wanted to tell the reader, 'yes so Kilgore was actually a fictional version of me', and unite himself with this fictional character of his. I would have preferred my original goal, but it does at least seem to resolve a recurring theme in his stories — who or what does Kilgore Trout stand for? My answer to that based on my video review is 'forgiveness'.


—Original Thoughts—

Please, for goodness sake, do not read this first. I have read 11 of Kurt Vonnegut's novels, and this is far and away the worst. This will only be passable for established fans.

Review TBC.

پس با این وجود چه توجیهی برای نوشتن داستان هست؟ اینطور پاسخ می‌دهم: احساس می‌کنم افراد زیادی شدیدا محتاج دریافت این پیام هستند که «من هم مثل تو می‌اندیشم و احساس می‌کنم و من هم برخلاف بیشتر مردم به خیلی از چیزهایی که برایت ارزش دارند، اهمیت می‌دهم. تو تنها نیستی.»

از بخش ۵۸ صفحهٔ ۲۴۴، برگردان مهدی صداقت پیام، چاپ سوم ۱۳۸۷ انتشارات مروارید

2.5 stars. This book starts off well with quirky, original ideas and some very funny moments. It is Vonnegut's last 'novel'. It is partly science fiction, partly autobiographical and partly random comments on a number of topics. In this book he comments on his siblings, his wives, his children, his favourite books and authors, his wartime experiences, past friends and adds in random information such as the plot of The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne.

If you have not read any Kurt Vonnegut books then you should begin with one of his excellent novels - 'Slaughterhouse 5', 'God Bless You, Mr Rosewater', 'Cat's Cradle' or 'Breakfast of Champions'.

I found 'Vonnegut Letters', (a collection of his letters spanning his writing career), a very interesting and informative read for those readers wanting more information on Kurt Vonnegut.

every vonnegut i reread I go ‘this one is my favourite!’ and then i read another one and go ‘this one is my favourite!’

Racconto di fantascienza, frammento autobiografici, raccolta di aneddoti o testo di metalettatura? In realtà, tutto questo insieme.
Non è il libro che ci si aspetta, leggendo la quarta di copertina, ma è stato davvero un bel viaggio, grazie Mr. Vonnegut!

"Molta gente ha bisogno un disperato bisogno di ricevere questo messaggio: 《Io sento e penso quanto te, mi preoccupo di molte cose di cui ti preoccupi tu, anche se la maggior parte della gente non se ne preoccupa. Non sei solo.》

Non lo consiglio come primo approccio all'autore.

“In real life, as in Grand Opera, arias only make hopeless situations worse.”
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Timequake



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.”