Rating: 
Summary: You don't need to be a two-headed genius to see the humour.
Review: This book wrestles with Breakfast of Champions for the title of Best Vonnegut Book. It is the reason why there is truly nobody like him on the bookshelves, and unfortunately there probably never will be again. The main force of the plot is the story of a freakish brother and sister team who, when they put their heads together, literally, are super-geniuses and are able to dream up the solutions to all of the world's problems. This is the main thread, but the novel is absolutely filled with the funniest, most bizarre series of narrative tangents ever put to paper. From variable gravity to the microscopic Chinese, Vonnegut takes you on the acid-trip of your life, all the while presenting the usual complete characterizations and spot-on riffs on contemporary society. There's one section of this book that ALWAYS gets me, with the grotestque siblings pretending to be idiots to their parents and handlers, because their genius has told them this is the best way to get by in life. I dunno, I've read a lot and plan on reading plenty more, but I really do think that I will never read another book as purely good as this one. I hope I'm wrong, of course...but I don't think so.
Rating:
Summary: A great authors best book
Review: Kurt Vonnegut Jr. has written many great novels, but this ma y be his best. Mr. Vonnegut turns the world on it's ear and then shows us the absurdity of it all. I found Slapstick t o be both his funniest and finest novel, a work of real huma nity and humor. There were times when my stomach hurt from laghing and on the same page he managed to turn it sour. As lo, there is the style issue. He plays with the reader by s topping and starting and punchates the whole wonderful mess with word hiccups. Hi Ho. In closing, if you have ever re ad and enjoyed black humor, read it at it's best. Slapstick is the best
Rating: 
Summary: weird
Review: That pretty much sums it up. Welcome to entertainment, and lost society, lost humanity, lost everything. Told from the point of view of an old man who just doesn't care anymore, this novel hardly has the humor that the title suggests, and it's just more tragic than anything. Welcome to the twisted future, where the messed up inner workings of our minds come forth is a world devoid of resources, ambition, order, or any real accomplishments -- welcome to Western Civilization. Where's the humor? Don't ask me. But, like all Vonnegut, this is indeed a memorable book.
Rating:
Summary: Want a good Laugh??
Review: After reading "the second greatest story..." this was a natural progression because of the writing style of bechard (one of his greatest influences was Vonnegut). I spent 3 hours in the bookstore looking for something "worthwhile" and finally come to the "v" section in fiction. I remembered that Vonnegut was a big influence in the last book I had read and really enjoyed so I picked it up and read about 20 pages in the bookstore. I liked it - it was extremely odd and off the wall but laugh out loud funny. Wilbur (the main character) and his sister are modern day freaks of nature. Monsters you could say.
They are geniuses when put their heads together. All of the concepts of this book are far fetched yet thought provoking and pretty damn amusing.
Rating: 
Summary: Uncharacteristically flat Vonnegut
Review: Just two stars. It pains me. KV is one of my favorite authors, and so I'm used to his often quirky and silly style which he used to spectacular effect in books like Slaughterhouse-Five and especially Breakfast of Champions (my personal fave). But here it seems as if Vonnegut is simply working his shtick, heartlessly going through the motions as if he were getting tired of the whole routine. It wasn't for lack of ideas--as usual, he offers a huge pile of observations about our collective condition in the monkey house and wacky but insightful solutions to the problems therein--but they seem to be all but random bits of dust floating in a shapeless mess of a story that tries to coagulate into something meaningful and ultimately doesn't really go anywhere. Perhaps another draft would have helped pull everything together. Or maybe at this point KV really was as washed out as he keeps insisting. And yes, all the "hi-ho"s in this book are not only pointless but royally irritating, like the hiccups they are likened to--definitely not on the same level of literary greatness as KV's immortal "and so on". He was reaching. Kilgore Trout doesn't even appear. Read Slapstick only after having seen what KV is REALLY capable of when all his cylinders are firing and the nitrous is on full blast: Breakfast of Champions, Slaughterhouse-Five, Welcome To The Monkey House, Cat's Cradle, Mother Night. Etc. And so on.
Rating:
Summary: Cat's Cradle Redux.
Review: Years after his classic 'Cat's Cradle', an apocalyptic novel with such a varied subject matter that it gives Pynchon a run for his money, Vonnegut returns to treat the 'end of the world' once more with 'Slapstick'. Though not as much of a classic as 'Cat's Cradle', 'Slapstick' is very entertaining and gets at the core of Vonnegut's philosophy. The already-extant reviews encapsulate the plot well, so I'll keep my comments to this. One might well say that the wanna-be idiots at the novel's beginning have little to do with it's strange, Great Society (heh) ending, what comes in between is what matters. The novel will entertain, make you think, keep your brain whirring. Don't listen to the critics; by the time you make the journey and get at the fairy tale ending, you'll know it's good.
Rating:
Summary: As silly as its name entails
Review: As far as I can tell, this was Vonnegut's attempt at an distopian novel of the vein of Brave New World or 1984, yet more satirical. But Vonnegut struck out with this book. The first person narrative style of Slapstick is somewhat similar to that of Cat's Cradle (which I have yet to finish). The story is told from the viewpoint of the King of New York, who is the ugliest man in the world and is the former President of the United States. During his presidency, he invents artificial familes based on randomized middle names, and scientific advancements by the Chinese and the Albanian flu lead to the destruction of the country. As the descriptions of the novel show, Slapstick is utterly ridiculous, which was of course Vonnegut's aim. Unfortunately, the book does not seem to have much more of a deeper meaning. Instead, it seems as though it was just an excuse for Vonnegut to write another crazy book. It seems too silly to be intriguing on a more literary scope. Another problem is that the reappearing "Hi ho" in Slapstick becomes annoying quickly. One good thing about this book is that it is a very quick read. If you see it at a yardsale, you might want to pick it up for a quick giggle. But that's about all you will get from this book. I wouldn't invest any more money in it than a dollar or two. If you are interested in Vonnegut, start with Slaughterhouse-Five if you haven't already read it. It is still the best book of his that I have read.
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Summary: 100 year old 4-nippled man in a purple toga. A great read.
Review: One-hundred year old, two meter tall Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain, former President of the United States who won the election with the campaign slogan "Lonesome No More" sits in his home, the lobby floor of the Empire State Building, wearing a purple toga and writing about his life.
One hundred years before this day, four nippled, twelve-fingered and twelve-toed neanderthaloid twins Wilbur and his sister Eliza laid in the hospital far away from where anyone could see their horrid selves while the doctors conversed on what to do about them and determined that they would not live past 14 years of age.
Vonnegut pieces these two dates together marvelously in this bizarre but incredible novel. Not only is it a fascinating story that you will not want to put down, but it also illustrates some views that will make you really think on family, love, and society. For example, a fabulous quote from this book is "Please-a little less love, and a little more common decency."
Rating: 
Summary: Good for a Laugh, But What's the Point?
Review: Kurt Vonnegut's Slapstick or Lonesome No More! is an apocalyptic, though somehow light-hearted vision of the future of our planet and the demise of the United States. It is written as the autobiography of Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain, former pediatrician, author, and President of the United States who is writing the story from the first floor of the Empire State Building on The Island of Death (a.k.a. Manhattan). In this amusing account, Vonnegut weaves some of his craftiest humor into a story that it strangely devoid of emotion like so many of his other novels. However, if you're expecting anything on the same level as Mother Night or Slaughterhouse-5, you'll be disappointed. The basic fact of the matter is this: Vonnegut's best is always the most evocative of the world we live in. In this book, he discusses our future as a human race, but in doing this, he fails to show the connection between our current actions and the result in the impending future. In my opinion, that is what makes good satire, and though he manages to deliver a few nice punch lines, the purpose of the tale is murky and ambiguous. Every once in the while, I felt that I might have finally figured out the real central theme of the novel. For example, when the main character becomes president, he splits the population into "families" so they will be "lonesome no more." However, it is difficult to tell if this is successful through his writing, so the purpose of this incident also becomes muddled under the constant onslaught of his humor. In conclusion, while Slapstick might be good for a laugh, the reader is likely to ask himself after finishing the book "What's the point?"
Rating:
Summary: "Lonesome no more"? Yes
Review: Slapstick was a great novel because Kurt Vonnegut Showed all characteristics of Wilbur and Eliza and with all their adventures they went through, Kurt Vonnegut said it like if he went through it for real but we all know he would have hade to be some ugly guy for him to go through this.
Hi HO This book is great even for those who think they had felt some lonely some through out there lives
Hi HO.
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