Monday, May 25, 2009

ON BOOKS ~ Galapagos...

MizB asks you to:
  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page.
  • Share the title of the book the teaser comes from…that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
  • Please avoid spoilers!

From pg. 208 of GALAPAGOS by Kurt Vonnegut (fiction)...

"Why so many of us a million years ago purposely knocked out major chunks of our brains with alcohol from time to time remains an interesting mystery. It may be that we were trying to give evolution a shove in the right direction - in the direction of smaller brains."

Oh how I love this book. Parts of it do come off as a bit dated now, but the overall theme about all that we, the human race, and our oversized brains are doing to make ourselves extinct is still very resonant.

This is a tale of "The Nature Cruise of the Century" to Darwin's Galapagos islands in 1986 and how the small group of people beached on one of the islands ends up becoming the future all of humankind. The detached narrator looks back on the pivotal moments leading up to and including that doomed cruise and how Natural Selection caused humans to survive and evolve - to a much simpler, survival based existence - with smaller brains leading to a future one million years strong and counting.

I absolutely hate spoilers. I don't even care to be reminded in the slightest about the plot before I read something. So it is very funny that I enjoy this book so much since throughout Vonnegut does nothing but spoil things and tell us what is going to happen point blank rather than via foreshadowing - that seems to be for sissies. As he himself said, "Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages."

Vonnegut pokes fun at society and the problems we create for ourselves. His wry humor weaves around his more serious statements about such things as the atrocities of war. This book was devilishly fun. Read it if you want a satirical laugh about yourself and human nature. After all, in a million years you won't be able to read the book with just your flippers and your mouth.

13 comments:

Literary Feline said...

This does sound like a good book. I haven't read anything by Kurt Vonnegut. Yet.

Sandy Nawrot said...

Wow. Like Wendy, I've embarassingly not read any of Vonnegut, but I know I would get into this one. I like a little twisted irony!

Anonymous said...

I've been meaning to read this one for years. I really enjoyed your review of it as well.

Urban Panther said...

"If you have IC, your doctor won't find any bacteria when he analyzes your urine sample, even though the symptoms of IC are similar to those of a bacterial bladder infection (frequent urination - especially at night - a sudden urge to urinate, and pain that becomes worse as the bladder fills up).

Book = Menopause for Dummies

I kid you not. That is what I am currently reading :)

Caspette said...

This sounds really curious.

Good teaser.

My teaser is here

Jenny Girl said...

Unfortunately Vonnegut is not for me, but I'm glad you enjoy him :)
good teaser.
here is my teaser

Margot said...

A devilishly fun book? Now this I need to read.

Wendi said...

Thanks for the interesting teaser! Here's my Teaser! ~ Wendi

Kerri said...

Sounds interesting, I have not read Vonnegut. Glad you liked the Bryson teaser. Thanks for stopping by.

kelley said...

Sounds like an interesting book, I liked your teaser but it wouldn't have been as good without your info blurb following it. nice post. Thanks for stopping by today.

Teddyree said...

Interesting teaser & thanks for stopping by my blog, happy that my Lord Ian teaser tweaked your interest in historical romance LOL

Jenny King said...

Love this teaser!!

I think I may be crazy. I feel quite ill when I think about actually doing it :S They're going to have to push me out I think :P

Square Peg Guy said...

I read that and liked it, except that the narration came off a bit extra-terrestrial.

I came across this book after reading about careers in data mining and statistics, of all things, because ... well it's a long trail of recommended reading.

Another book that was mentioned was Greg Bear's "Darwin's Radio," which is awesome and scary.