The actual story is draped over this mass of squirming digressions, filling the cracks and giving substance to the book. We have two main characters; one is named Kilgore Trout, the other Dwayne Hoover. They are two Americans of roughly similar age, living in different parts of the nation. Kilgore is an unknown science-fiction writer; Dwayne a small-town entrepreneur. Kilgore receives an invitation from an arts festival taking place in Dwayne’s middle-America town, to which he leaves to attend. Most of the story is a build-up to a meeting between these two characters, an event we’re lead to believe will be a boisterous fulmination of two hundred and fifty-odd pages.
The storyline is pretty slight, but, as I said before, it’s all in the asides, and the gleeful wordplay that frames it. Some nice use of repetitive prose techniques, such as the recurring numeration of penis sizes. It’s the type of style subsequently taken to nihilistic extremes with Chuck Palahniuk. The influence is here clear, just a little less visceral imagery in Vonnegut.
But the anthropological and cultural/consumer criticisms are present. The book is written almost as if it’s intended for a young child, or those famous literary aliens from Mars that are constantly cited; someone naïve to the bloodthirsty and corrupt ways of the planet we inhabit. Castigations of government penned in adorable flights of fancy. Lingual knives shot off into the hearts of profit-mongering execs without even the hint of venomous serration.
It makes it all very easily digested, and some of that wisdom can be overlooked in the process. The plot may be slender but the highlights come in the nuggets of brilliant farce slipped in-between, or the hilarious synopses of Kilgore’s obscure novels that punctuate his hitchhiking across the continent. Let Kurt Vonnegut take you on an excursion into American culture on a torrent of riotous self-acknowledgement.
Article comments
1 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
With your permission I would like to borrow the following phrases for my personal use: "prosodic slipstream," "boisterous fulmination" and "venomous serration." You know, work them into conversation, pizza orders, and such.
I of course will give you full credit.
2 - Mat Brewster
Stick around Gordon, and Sir Fleming will give you a few more nuggets before the night's over.
Sounds like a perfectly weird, nutty, wonderful book, like much of Vonnegut's work. I'll have to check it out soon.
3 - Mary K. Williams
That's our Sir Fleming, doing what he does best, putting words together in such interesting ways, AND making sense at the same time.
4 - Aaron Fleming
Gordon, you have my complete permission, those labourers down Pizza Hut avenue would love that I'm sure!
Making sense is always fun, I might play with it more often.
5 - Mark Saleski
nice review aaron. i haven't gone back to read any of vonnegut's stuff (not counting A Man Without A Country) since Galapagos came out.
maybe i should.
6 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
excellent review, Sir Fleming, and a new avenue explored herein, being the ol' Book Review. it makes sense that this avenue should be trundled along by those whiplash words o' yours. and i must read this number, owing to how you've done gone made it impossible not to. brilliant work, sir, says I.
7 - Mat Brewster
And then there is the Duke, who puts words together in such interesting ways, but doesn't make a lick of sense!
Just kiddin' Sir Duke, your words do all sorts of sense making and churn my innards into stars.
8 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
sense is overmisunderestimated, anyway.
9 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!
10 - Zakir Hemraj
Your style of writing is absolutely amazing. Very original, I love it.