Book Review of Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut

Galapagos is a tale of the near-apocalyptic rise and fall of the human race. Vonnegut tells the story in such a humorous way that he turns a tragic plot into the funniest nobel I have ever read.

This book is A-list because is, though an interesting plot, shows us an outsiders’s view of our thoughts as humans. And not what our thoughts will be in the future, but what they are right now, right at this minute. As the narrator is telling the story one million years in out future he cleverly points out some of the outrageous beliefs that each and every human being has now. Becuse it is showing a different view of how we live our lives and pointing out the pointless and unexplainable behaviors many of us have.

I beleive another reason why Galapagos is an A-list book is that it is an interesting mix of reaserch and pure fiction in one beleivable novel. Many things writen about in Galapagos, such as wildlife and the hhistory of Charles Darwin’s explorations there must have been reaserched in depth. However, Galapagos is fiction. Vonnegut writesabout events that happened in 2001, sixteen years before it actualy happened, and it is now in our past. Now we know that the events he wrote about in his book are false. The mix of fiction and fact in Galapagos is most definately of A-list quality.

One thins that is very unique about Kurt Vonnegut’s writing in this novel was the ammout of foreshadowing. I would estimate that this writing tool took up about forty percent of the book. Some people might thins this would become boring, but in this case it didn’t. Because Vonnegut used foreshadowing in crucial places he was able to tie together many events in the intricate plot. What foreshadowing providded the reader with the most was a greater understanding of why things were happening in the story and how they were related to eachother. I beleive in most other books this level of understanding in this particular area is nonexistant.

An interesting part of Kurt Vonnegut’s writing was his ablility to create amazing characters while still keeping the story fairly beleivable. In Galapagos there were mant such characters. Between the main characters of the book one was blind, two had a disease that made you go crazy at age 41, and one gave birth to a furry child. However strange these descriptions might seem, the novel was still completely reasonable. It takes much skill to be able to create such extravigant characters while still keeping the reader beleiving.

In my opinion, one of the most interesting ideas brought up by Vonnegut was Darwin’s theory of narutal selection.  As narutral selection (in theory) selects the beings who have the best surcical qualities to reproduce more it helps the species survive longer or in better health conditions.  However, I don’t think humans have ever thought of themselves as being affected by this process.  In this novel they are, to a huge extent.  In my mind humans think of themselves as superior to any other type of being.  But humans aren’t.  We aren’t different than any other beind out there.  At any time, natural selection could take its toll on out species, just as it did in Galapagos.

Overall, Galapagos is one of my favorite books of al time.  It’s extremely unique and provides a new, exciting, and entertaining way of looking at our everyday lives.  On a scale of one to ten I rate this book at a 9.25.  I would certainly recoment this book to anyone who loves a new read.  This book could be exciting for anyone!!

Review by greensquared