Timequake [Paperback]

Kurt Vonnegut (Author)

Book Description

Release date: August 1, 1998

There's been a timequake. And everyone—even you—must live the decade between February 17, 1991 and February 17, 2001 over again. The trick is that we all have to do exactly the same things as we did the first time—minute by minute, hour by hour, year by year, betting on the wrong horse again, marrying the wrong person again. Why? You'll have to ask the old science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout. This was all his idea.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Think of Timequake, Kurt Vonnegut's 19th and last novel (or so he says), as a victory lap. It's a confident final trot 'round the track by one of the greats of postwar American literature. After 40 years of practice, Vonnegut's got his schtick down cold, and it's a pleasure--if a slightly tame one--to watch him go through his paces one more time.

Timequake's a mongrel; it is half novel, half memoir, the project of a decade's worth of writer's block, a book "that didn't want to be written." The premise is standard-issue Vonnegut: "...a timequake, a sudden glitch in the space-time continuum, made everybody and everything do exactly what they'd done during past decades, for good or ill, a second time..." Simultaneously, the author's favorite tricks are on display--frequent visits with the shopworn science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, a Hitchcockian appearance by the author at the book's end, and frequent authorial opining on love, war, and society. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Delayed over a year, Vonnegut's latest finally arrives, with alter ego Kilgore Trout facing millennial catastrophe.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Berkley Trade (August 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425164349
• ISBN-13: 978-0425164341
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (210 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922. He studied at the universities of Chicago and Tennessee and later began to write short stories for magazines. His first novel, Player Piano, was published in 1951 and since then he has written many novels, among them: The Sirens of Titan (1959), Mother Night (1961), Cat's Cradle (1963), God Bless You Mr Rosewater (1964), Welcome to the Monkey House; a collection of short stories (1968), Breakfast of Champions (1973), Slapstick, or Lonesome No More (1976), Jailbird (1979), Deadeye Dick (1982), Galapagos (1985), Bluebeard (1988) and Hocus Pocus (1990). During the Second World War he was held prisoner in Germany and was present at the bombing of Dresden, an experience which provided the setting for his most famous work to date, Slaughterhouse Five (1969). He has also published a volume of autobiography entitled Palm Sunday (1981) and a collection of essays and speeches, Fates Worse Than Death (1991).

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#6 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction

#7 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Science Fiction

#10 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

#19 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy

#20 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

#6 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction

#7 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Science Fiction

#10 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction

#19 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy

#20 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Classics

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

116 of 117 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Novelist Emeritus November 18, 2005

By My Uncle Stu VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Anyone who has had enough education has likely run into the phenomenon of the elderly professor, someone widely known to have been a genius, revolutionary in his time, who is no longer quite on their game. Usually, these people are fascinating and worth listening to because of what they've accomplished and been part of, but they aren't teaching anything new. You listen, but you listen more with polite deference than with interest. You laugh at the jokes but it is that respectful, polite laughter. You recognize that the delivery is a little soft.

I love Kurt Vonnegut. I have read almost everything he has written. Time Quake is worth reading, but is not the book to pick up if you aren't a huge fan already and if you haven't exhausted all his earlier works. He tells us in the introduction that he began to write a novel but it wasn't working out, so he jumbled it around and mixed it in with autobiographical details. This is not that much different from what he has always done, but at this point, as novelist emeritus, he can get away with doing this in a cruder fashion, lighter reading, low on nuance.

Just as Mozart wrote the same symphony 40 different times, Vonnegut has written the same semi-autobiographic, semi-sci-fi novel 19 times. This isn't a criticism. In both cases, Mozart and Vonnegut, you know what you are getting, it's great, well worth it, and you go back for more knowing it will be very much more of the same. The message is always there in Vonnegut: Free will is largely an illusion, life is a meaningless and often cruel series of stochastic events, but that everything connects through the chaos of chance. But once the cruelty and meaninglessness of the universe is accepted, one can also appreciate remarkable wonder and joy beneath the surface.

So buy and read this book if you are a big fan, but this is not the book to buy if you are just getting introduced to Vonnegut's writings. For starter Vonnegut, I know people would say Slaughterhouse-Five but I'm partial to Cat's Cradle, Deadeye Dick, and Slastick for novels, Palm Sunday for essays, and Welcome to the Monkey House for short stories.

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Misunderstood Classic October 13, 2002

By Caesar

Format:Paperback

...Upon it's release, "Timequake" was hailed as Vonnegut's final novel (and it may very well be). He had been writing it on and off for ten years, and after a series of rewrites and revisions, he admitted that the book ultimately failed. Therefore, the original sci-fi premise--the events surrounding a 'glitch' in time that causes people to relive episodes of their lives over and over again--becomes merely a sidelining plot, whereas Vonnegut's often pessimistic reflections on his life, career, family, and existence in general, becomes the main focus of this semi-autobiographical book.

So in addition to revisiting Vonnegut's fictional alter-ego, Kilgore Trout, we witness Vonnegut in his everyday life and his struggle to write a novel doomed to fail. The result is a classic collection of Vonnegut's combination of humor with heartbreak that has defined his written career of the past half-century.

For Vonnegut's many devoted readers, including myself, "Timequake" is a difficult book to read. We know it is a farewell to his fans. It is also an emotional read, since our hero is often critical of himself, and not in the lighthearted sense of his earlier novels. He is old, he is ill, he is bitter. When so many people consider him to be one of the greatest novelists America has produced, he seems to view himself as a failure...instead of ending his career with a crowning achievement, he chooses to quietly wave and step out the back door.

Nonetheless, Vonnegut's incomparable talent makes this an excellent book. However, one should not rate this book without first becoming familiar with his earlier work. Only then can it be appreciated as the ingenious conclusion to an illustrious career.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars But, what about the timequake? August 30, 2002

By Eileen_KM

Format:Paperback

This is the third Vonnegut novel that I've read so far. I loved and hated this book. The 3 stars that I gave this book is somewhat unfair to Vonnegut because the book wasn't necessarily poor, it's just not what I had expected.

What I loved: the idea and creativity of a "timequake" and the scraps here and there of the timequake.

What I didn't expect: these little extra memoirs and the last third of the novel. You find yourself reading "a completely different book" consisting of Vonnegut's own personal reflections; you can just about call it an autobiography.

In conclusion, this is probably not the book for you if you're looking for something that flows and has well, a plot. Otherwise, if you're simply in for chunks of Vonnegut's classic satire, look no further!