Timequake
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 Cover of first edition (hardcover) |
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| Author | Kurt Vonnegut |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Semi-autobiographical novel |
| Publisher | Putnam Publishing Group |
| Released | 1997 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 219 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-399-13737-8 |
- For an alternate meaning of timequake, see Millennium (film).
Timequake is a semi-autobiographical work by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. published in 1997.
[edit] Plot summary
In his final novel, Vonnegut uses the premise of a timequake (or repetition of actions) in which there is no free will. The idea of determinism is explored -- as it is in many of his previous works -- to assert that people really have no free will. Kilgore Trout serves again as the main character. Vonnegut explains in the beginning of the book that he was not satisfied with the original version of Timequake he wrote (or Timequake One). So, he took parts of Timequake One and combined it with personal thoughts and anecdotes to make the finished product, so-called Timequake Two. Many of the anecdotes deal with Vonnegut's family, the death of loved ones, and people's last words.
The plot, while centered on Trout, is also a sort of ramble in which Vonnegut goes off on complete tangents to the plot and comes back dozens of pages later: the Timequake has thrust citizens of the year 2001 back in time to 1991 to repeat every action they undertook during that time.
Most of the small stories in the book center around the depression and sadness wrought by watching oneself make bad choices: people watch their parents die again, drive drunk or cause accidents that severely injure others. At the end of the timequake, when people resume control, they are depressed and gripped by ennui. Only the Kilgore Trout has it together enough to call people to action.
In the conclusion of this book, Vonnegut (who has inserted himself into the text, something he also did in Breakfast of Champions) meets other authors for a celebration of Trout. With this recognition, Trout alludes to being sleepy. Vonnegut thus uses Trout to express his stepping down from writing novels and his increasing closeness to death.
| Novels | 1950s: Player Piano (1952) • The Sirens of Titan (1959) 1960s: Mother Night (1961) • Cat's Cradle (1963) • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine (1965) • Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade (1969) 1970s: Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye, Blue Monday (1973) • Slapstick or Lonesome No More (1976) • Jailbird (1979) 1980s: Deadeye Dick (1982) • Galápagos (1985) • Bluebeard (1987) 1990s: Hocus Pocus (1990) • Timequake (1996) |
| Short story collections | Canary in a Cathouse (1961) • Welcome to the Monkey House (1968) • Bagombo Snuff Box (1999) |
| Collected essays | Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (1974) • Palm Sunday, An Autobiographical Collage (1981) • Fates Worse than Death, An Autobiographical Collage (1990) • God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (2001) • A Man Without a Country (2005) |
| Plays | Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970) • Between Time and Timbuktu, or Prometheus Five: A Space Fantasy (1972) • Make Up Your Mind (1993) • Miss Temptation (1993) • L'Histoire du Soldat (1993) |
| Adaptations | |
| Stage | Welcome to the Monkey House (1970, 1974) • Sirens of Titan (1974) • Cat's Cradle (1976) • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1979) • Breakfast of Champions (1984) • Requiem (Stone, Time, and Elements: A Humanist Requiem) (1988) • Slaughterhouse-Five (1996) |
| Film | Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971) • Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) • Next Door (1975) • Slapstick of Another Kind (1982) • Mother Night (1996) • Breakfast of Champions (1999) |
| Television | Displaced Person (1958, 1985) • EPICAC (1974, 1992) • Who Am I This Time? (1982) • All the King's Horses (1991) • Next Door (1991) • The Euphio Question (1991) • Fortitude (1992) • The Foster Portfolio (1992) • More Stately Mansions (1992) • Harrison Bergeron (1995) |
