the time to change is now

book: galapogos
author: kurt vonnegut
completion date:14/07/10
method: gift (jake)

i think that vonnegut and attwood have similar sympathies towards the human race: neither of them think that we are particularly well adjusted to live in this world. which i have to say i agree with. we are not very good natural hunters, our bodies don't fare well in the climates we live in (we have no fur and pretty thin skin). currently we cannot eat local plants (i mean grass, leaves). but maybe thats because we have evolved to live in the world we live in now...or the world we have created has stalled our evolution.
i feel that i've found my new chuck in vonnegut. he has a similar nihilistic style, but he has a much smoother, interesting method. his characters are different and interesting. then again, this is the first vonnegut book i've ever read so i don't know for sure if he just keeps rewriting the same characters but based on his history i would assume that he has a more varied cast.
the narrator confused me in this book. i was really throw off guard when i realized that the narration was in first person- told from the point of view of a ghost haunting this ship. i really was not expecting that but it made for an interesting perspective. the ghost remembers what civilization was and explains the change that humans went through when they had to start over. it is very similar to what happens in oryx and crake only a little less terrifying. this disaster was not a virus created to wipe out the dirty pleb people by some psychotic genius but world war three. however, we never really know what happened to everyone, because our narrator doesn't know. if anything it feels more like a side not that this disaster happened. although it is integral to the plot it doesn't feel that monumental.
i wonder how some authors don't become attatched to their characters tho. vonnegut just seems to let whatever may happen happen to them. maybe thats a silly critisism...
this really made me want to read more vonnegut though. he has such an easy way of writing and i feel like i could get lost in his books easily. it isn't the kind of world i would want to be trapped in though. everything just seems so chaotic.
xo-ellebee