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Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain, centenarian, the last President of the United States, King of Manhattan, and one-half (along with his sister, Eliza) of the most powerful intelligence since Einstein, is penning his autobiography. He occupies the first floor of a ruined Empire State Building and lives like a royal scavenger with his illiterate granddaughter and her beau. Buffeted by fluctuating gravity, the U.S. has been scourged by not one, but two lethal diseases: the Green Death and the Albanian Flu. Consequently, the country has fallen into civil war. (Super-intelligent, miniaturized Chinese watch the West self-destruct from the sidelines.) Swain stayed at the White House until there were no citizens left to govern, then moved to deserted New York City, where he writes a thoughtful missive before death.
In Slapstick, Vonnegut muses on war, man's hubris, and the awful, crippling loneliness humans are freighted with--but, miraculously, the book still manages to delight and amuse. Absurd, knowing, never depressing, Slapstick kindles hope--for the possibility of wisdom, perhaps; for human resiliency, surely.
It's best to end with a quote from the prologue wherein the author discourses on The Meaning of It All, or at least This Book: "Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go off looking for it, and I think it can often be poisonous.
I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please--a little less love, and a little more common decency.'"
Amen.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
“Some of the best and most moving Vonnegut.”—San Francisco Chronicle
“Both funny and sad . . . just about perfect.”—Los Angeles Times
“Imaginative and hilarious . . . a brilliant vision of our wrecked, wacked-out future.”—Hartford Courant
“Both funny and sad . . . just about perfect.”—Los Angeles Times
“Imaginative and hilarious . . . a brilliant vision of our wrecked, wacked-out future.”—Hartford Courant
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
It is springtime. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
It is springtime. Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Typical Vonnegut--very good,
By Shelia A. (Calgary) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Slapstick or Lonesome No More!: A Novel (Paperback)
Being a Vonnegut fan from decades ago (giving away my age here), I can honestly say that SLAPSTICK is ever bit as good as his other works. This is truly Vonnegut at his best. A great read that will take merely 2 hours of your time. Vonnegut brings to the table greatly constructed, humourous characters to deliver his message with powerful yet simple force. Terrific plot lines and unforgettable satire will keep you zipping through the pages of this wondrous read. The story is farfetch'd yet strangely familiar, with the eerie sort of truth and obviousness that Vonnegut readers love and expect. Nothing but genius here, though incredibly off the wall it is brilliant!... the same way McCrae's "Katzenjammer" is, or perhaps the works of Palahniuk. Highly recommended.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Uncharacteristically flat Vonnegut,
By
This review is from: Slapstick or Lonesome No More!: A Novel (Paperback)
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.
4.0 out of 5 stars
weird,
By Bob NothingElse (al-ba-ker-kee.) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Slapstick or Lonesome No More!: A Novel (Paperback)
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.
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