Ease Reading-Find Your Next Favorite Book

Hot Search

Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!

kurt vonnegut jr.

... Show More
Slapstick presents an apocalyptic vision as seen through the eyes of the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the United States), a wickedly irreverent look at the all-too-possible results of today’s follies. But even the end of life-as-we-know-it is transformed by Kurt Vonnegut’s pen into hilarious farce—a final slapstick that may be the Almighty’s joke on us all.

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1,1976
Places
the united states of america, 

This edition

Format
288 pages, Paperback
Published
May 11, 1999 by Dial Press
ISBN
9780385334235
ASIN
0385334230
Language
English
Characters More characters

More editions

About the author

Profile Image for kurt vonnegut jr.

kurt vonnegut jr.

... Show More
Kurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.

He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.

After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.

His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.

Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Readers also enjoyed

Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
32(32%)
4 stars
36(36%)
3 stars
32(32%)
2 stars
0(0%)
1 stars
0(0%)
100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
rifqiace
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
What the ever loving fuck is this?

One good thing is that my hate of Vonnegut is confirmed. Never again.

Only barely trudged through it because it was five hours on audible. Adam Grupper's
narration was also one of the dullest and monotone narrations I've ever heard, a close second to the narration of "The Forever War" by George Wilson. If this was supposed to be funny, he ruined it. What a load of nonsense.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Inukekarynatsusu
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
Bottom-tier Vonnegut but still worth a read
Also - I echo the world here - the prologue may be the best thing he's ever written
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
BluePikmin11
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
A comical absurdism. This is the story of the President of the United States in not-so-far away future with a dumb wit and incestuous love with his abdominal sister and the cure for loneliness, on the other hand, it allegories American people and their "abdominal"land trying to bond with the primitive and ruthless origins whereas sometimes their ideology is justified to be perished and the U.S. after all can't be reconciled with his sister again (for the moment I write this on-- it reminds me of Wuthering Heights and holy shit it's almost the same plot!)

I like the long prologue when Vonnegut talks about his family: his brother in love with his work like the Blacksmith secretly in love with his anvil (my favorite part), the tragic death of his sister and brother-in-law, the museum of childhood memories, family of choices and so on. Also the way he subscribes the book dedicated to the love for his sister (in an incestuous way!) is very creepy and unique.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
pk8list
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
Klasická "vonnegutovina" s rysmi, ktoré som opísala už pri recenzii k Sirénam z Titanu - puzzle.

Na tomto románe sa mi najviac páčili dve myšlienky, ktoré považujem za geniálne a ktoré si zapíšem, ak by som na ne niekedy zabudla:
1. Gravitácia na Zemi sa môže meniť ako počasie. Niekedy je slabšia, inokedy taká silná, že sa nezvládnete ani postaviť. A vďaka tomu, že v minulosti boli výkyvy gravitácie bežné, počas dní, keď bola gravitácia slabšia ako obvykle, mohli ľudia postaviť pyramídy alebo Stonehenge.

2. Číňania vymysleli látku, vďaka ktorej sa všetci zmenšili na veľkosť ukazováka. Bolo to výhodné, pretože napr. jedna porcia jedla "normálneho" človeka nasýtila 1000 Číňanov. Okrem toho ušetrili aj na bývaní, oblečení, atď.

Haj hou.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Murtle__
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
Here's a very personal example of how the "grotesque situational poetry" of Vonnegut's life spun off a weird, post-apocalyptic, loosely structured novel. He begins the book with a 21-page factual Prologue containing a wistful accounting of his sister's tragedy which sets up the novel itself. For me, this 21-page Prologue was the best and most moving part of the book—by far. The novel itself uses the frequent Vonnegut technique of snippets of text, presenting and associating events with each other, but without his usual concern for structure. It almost seemed he was being lazy. And, as I read, I was always vaguely uncomfortable, even embarrassed: perhaps there was too much personal bitterness, too much of the man himself, unlike the extremely ironic situational bitterness which carried Slaughterhouse-Five to greatness.

After reading Vonnegut's first seven novels, Slapstick perhaps is the transition to a later style, one with more "maturity," whatever that means. As I prepare to read through his remaining novels in sequence, we will see, but I hope his boisterous humor returns.

As for Vonnegut's self-assesment of this book as a "D", I think I see his point, but it still rates a solid "3 stars" here and now.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Haunted_Hare
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
Vonnegut is always a bit strange, isn't he? I picked this book up at a hostel swap library and I read it in an afternoon. It has a bit of the sci-fi quality that he apparently says he doesn't write anymore, but nevertheless, it's there. The book was written in the late 70s, but some of the cultural predictions are, if not accurate, hilarious to read today.

For example, the Chinese genetically develop themselves to be even tinier so that they consume less food. They get down to 6cm in size! Also, the President of the United States (oddly enough, he is the narrator) decides that all people will be given a new middle name, which along with 9,999 other people, will form the basis of a new family of relatives.

Experimentation with social theory is just one subject this book touches upon. Very interesting for a summer read, particularly if you can just pick it up at the library.
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
Herlem
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
One of the things that I've always loved about Vonnegut is how simply he expresses complex ideas. Slapstick is no different. Here, he expands on the ideas of artificial families first imagined in his concepts of karass and duprass... the Swain children may be duprass personified, with their collective brilliance and their intimacy far beyond what is appropriate for siblings. Their isolation, however, is what leads Wilbur to create what could be the anti-karass... families built at random, not brought together by fate but by assignment.

Yet the idea as laid out is intriguing, despite how much I would hate to see it implemented real-time. Somehow it makes sense, the whole idea behind the book's subtitle, "Lonesome No More." Give someone something to belong to, and they're happier. It's the same concept tying people to religions, jobs, political parties, clubs, etc... we want to be part of something, to have people care about us. Randomly arranged families counteract class structures, cultural differences, race and creed, etc.

What Vonnegut does so well is adding these ideas to post-apocalyptic visions. Creating worlds that make total sense, despite shrinking Chinese, variable gravity, plagues, contagions, and kingdoms cropping up in America. Making us see the young Swains not as oddities or deviants, but with a sympathetic eye. We don't really question these things. What I do question, however, is Swain's repetitive tic of "Hi Ho." It's a bit of a pointless thread, especially considering how it echoes Vonnegut's earlier "So it goes" device. "So it goes" makes a bit of a point. Hi ho just sounds ridiculous. And in a world where we accept the grotesqueness of Wilbur and his sister and the breaking down of the country and the ability to float or not get up depending on the day, it takes a lot to be noticed as ridiculous.

(probably 3.75)
(Hi Ho)
0 0 Reply
Profile Image for Kimberly .
lexxing
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 26,2025
... Show More
In my mission to read all of Vonnegut, this and Mother Night have been the most captivating. I think both of them deal with love, romantic in mother night and familial in slapstick, being the one beautiful thing in an otherwise hateful or hostile world. The prologue setting the context of writing the book made this especially more impactful
0 0 Reply
Leave a Review
You must be logged in to rate and post a review. Register an account to get started.