Slapstick (novel)

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Title Slapstick

Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	Kurt Vonnegut
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science Fiction Novel
Publisher	Delacorte Press
Released	1976
Media type	Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
ISBN	ISBN 0-385-28944-8

Slapstick, or Lonesome No More! is a 1976 science fiction novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut.

The book was adapted into the 1982 film Slapstick of Another Kind.

[edit] Plot introduction

The novel concerns the life story of Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain. Dr. Swain lives in the ruins of the Empire State Building with his pregnant granddaughter, Melody Oriole-2 von Peterswald, and her lover, Isadore Raspberry-19 Cohen. Dr. Swain is a nearly 7 foot tall man who, in close physical contact with his twin Eliza, forms a vastly powerful and creative intelligence. This intelligence goes on to create, amongst other things, a plan to end loneliness in America through the creation of vast extended families. Under the plan, all citizens would be provided with a fanciful middle names, paired with numbers. Everyone with the same name would be cousins, and everyone with the same name and number would be siblings. Armed with this idea and the slogan, "Lonesome No More!," Dr. Swain wins election to the Presidency, and devotes the waning energies of the Federal government towards the implementation of the plan. In the meantime, Western civilization is nearing collapse as oil runs out, and the Chinese are making vast leaps forward by miniaturizing themselves and training groups of hundreds to think as one. Eventually, the miniaturization proceeds to the point that they become so small that they cause a plague among those who accidentally inhale them.

Throughout the book, Wilbur claims that his sister Eliza is the more intelligent of the two, but no one realizes that because she can't write. The conceit is that Wilbur and Eliza are two halves of the same brain -- Wilbur is the left brain: logical, rational, able to communicate; while Eliza is the right brain: creative, emotional, but unable to communicate effectively.

The novel has a typical Vonnegut pattern of short snippets often ending with a punchline of sorts. These are separated by the words "hi ho", which Dr. Swain describes as a sort of hiccup that has developed in his old age.

Often surreal, the novel was written shortly after the death of the author's sister, and seems to be a bizarre meditation on the nature of their closeness. Written in an almost free associative style, the book lacks the structural intricacies of Vonnegut's earlier works.

[edit] Explanation of title

Slapstick is dedicated to Arthur Stanley Jefferson and Norvell Hardy (better known as Laurel and Hardy), and the title of the novel is in reference to the physical and situational comedy style that duo employed. Vonnegut explains the title himself in the opening lines of the book's prologue:

"This is the closest I will ever come to writing an autobiography. I have called it "Slapstick" because it is grotesque, situational poetry -- like the slapstick film comedies, especially those of Laurel and Hardy, of long ago. It is about what life feels like to me."

[edit] External link

• Slapstick (Of Another Kind) at the Internet Movie Database