SLAPSTICK

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: 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: Slapstick is an exciting look at the oddest of odd.
Review: Slapstick, the novel by Kurt Vonnegut, is an exciting take on the oddest of odd. The story of freakish twins who grow up sharing one mind, captures the audience's attention with it's originality, and hidden humor. The novel becomes difficult to put down because of it's interesting plot. Because of it's difference to other novels, Slapstick is a one of a kind book that everyone should take the time to read. The story gives the reader a new understanding and thoughtfulness of life.