Galápagos

It took me thirty-three months to complete all fourteen of Kurt Vonnegut's novels. You can find reviews of each of them right here on this blog. Most of them were pretty good. A couple of them wound up being very disappointing and two or three were among the greatest books I've ever read. My pace was sporadic; I sometimes went nine months without reading a single word written by this author, and yet there were multiple instances where I'd post two books less than 24 hours apart from each other. But here I am, finally done with the novel portion of Vonnegut's bibliography, and pleased once again by an imaginative and light-hearted story about the end of humanity as we know it.

The premise of Galápagos, like the premise of most of Vonnegut's novels, is remarkably simple. For a 324-page novel, there's really not much story here at all, and what little story there is, good old Kurt spoils right out of the gate in tune with his signature style of removing any and all sense of mystery or suspense. Classic Vonnegut! In this one, a hodgepodge group of people in Ecuador accidentally sail a cruise ship right into the Galápagos Islands, marooning themselves there. Meanwhile, World War III rages just about everywhere else and a parasite that devours human ovaries spreads like wildfire, all but ensuring the quick extinction of the human race. Except, of course, for our unlikely heroes in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, who breed with one another and flourish. A million years pass, and all surviving "humans" are now seal-like creatures with flippers for swimming, long beaks for snapping at fish, and tiny brains. It's this elimination of the big and powerful brain had by humans of old, Vonnegut argues, that ends up being the key advantage these evolved humans have; humans from a million years ago (our present day) were always using their big old brains for no good, you see. Now, everyone lives happily in blissful ignorance of any worries or troubles.

This take - that people would be better off stupid and seal-like, living on beaches and eating fish all the time - is perfectly illustrative of so many themes that recur in Vonnegut's body of work. It's a take that is undeniably cynical, but it's written in such a warm and straightforward style that the book ends up being a rather pleasant read. I'm glad I saved this book for last in my little sidequest through all fourteen of Vonnegut's novels. It wasn't my favorite of his stories, and it may not even rate among the top five or so in my mind (though I'll be sure to think long and hard about this before attempting an honest set of rankings) but it was quintessential Vonnegut in style, tone, and execution. I've enjoyed his books far too much over the course of these past three years to have hoped for anything less than a solid finale.

And so I've completed this somewhat daunting but very rewarding subsection of my backlog. I highly doubt this will be the last time I post something written by Vonnegut, though; he's got a handful of short story and essay collections that I'm sure I'll be hitting up sooner or later.