This was written back in 1997, when the book was brand-new and Kurt hadn't broken his promise not to write any more books!
Six years passed between the appearance of James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and his megalithic magnum opus Ulysses. Thomas Pynchon took seven years to reach the pot of gold at the end of Gravity’s Rainbow; he took another seven to chart the distance from Vineland to Mason & Dixon.
Likewise, it has been six years since Kurt Vonnegut’s last book, Fates Worse Than Death, and seven since his most recent novel, Hocus Pocus. His new book, Timequake, comes with a great deal of anticipation and nearly as much hype — this is not only the first novel in years by one of America’s most popular writers, but also, he claims, the last book he will write.
In early 1996, Vonnegut found himself “the creator of a novel which did not work, which had not point, which had never wanted to be written in the first place.” How many established authors would have the courage to say this? In this book, the titular timequake was “a sudden glitch in the space-time continuum,” a “déjà vu that wouldn’t quit for ten years,” in which everyone in the world relived the 1990s on autopilot. At the end of the redoubled decade, chaos ensues because everyone have lost the habits of agency and free will.
Faced with a novel “which stunk so,” Vonnegut went through a timequake of his own, salvaging the best bits of the beached book, revisiting episodes from his life, and braiding fiction and fact into this coda to his career.
Book in hand, the reviewer asks: Masterpiece or monster? Last gasp or second wind? From a critical standpoint, the book is problematic for the same reasons that Vonnegut is. Despite his lasting popularity, Vonnegut has never been an artist of the stature of, say, the aforementioned Joyce or even Pynchon. Any number of writers craft more graceful prose, compose more vivid worlds, and construct more intricate plots. Yet to those who have acquired the taste for Vonnegut’s deadpan melange of moralism and metafiction, allegory and entertainment, black humor and compassion, his books have an appeal unlike any others. But the qulaity of his work has always been erratic, with high points like Slaughterhouse-Fiveand, two decades later, Bluebeard, surrounded by books ranging from haphazardly charming to downright forgettable.
Article comments
1 - Doc
Kurt's my favorite contemporary author. The movies they make out of his stories are abominations, but I've loved the stories. I enjoy them more the older I get appreciate more of the nuances that come from 'life experience'.
He compares to Mark Twain for brillant bitter satire too. They are both real firebrands on religion. I adore both of their truly sarcastic takes on the true believers. :)
2 - Eric Olsen
I still think his earlier work is extaordinary, but he became increasingly bitter and defeatist over time, less funny and humane. I haven't read this one but it sounds like more of the same. Thanks Sean!
3 - Shark
Eric: "...he became increasingly bitter and defeatist over time, less funny and humane."
As my 84 year old mother says, "Growing old ain't for wimps."
PS: Shark's favorite Vonnegut masterpiece = "Galapagos"
4 - Eric Olsen
Sharky, you have bleak bleak view of human nature and the future of mankind. I don't mind being presented with possible worst-case scenarios in a cautionary manner, but I am not much interested in dispirited fatalism, especially when it isn't leavened with humor.
5 - Bob A. Booey
Don't vote for Bush then.
That is all.
6 - Shark
"...Sharky, you have bleak bleak view of human nature and the future of mankind..."
...Based on evidence from past performance.
(--And Reality ain't for wimps either!)
BTW: Eric, mentioning my mother and Vonnegut in the same breath was meant to indicate that the wisdom of age tends to dampen naive idealism.
We'll see what a happy little optimist you are when you've got more aches from the past than dreams of the future.
7 - Eric Olsen
Shark, I'm 46 and from a long line of youthful optimists - I don't see my outlook changing much.