Slapstick

Slapstick

Kurt Vonnegut

Summary (with spoiler):

The book follows the life of Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain, a deformed twin who eventually becomes president of the United States. Wilbur and his twin Eliza are mutants, assumed to be mentally deficient. They live the first 15 years of their lives in a large mansion with special helpers, pretending to be mentally challenged. When their parents come to visit, and their mother reveals she wishes they were intelligent, they reveal their ruse. As it turns out, Wilbur and Eliza are geniuses when in close physical contact, although when they are separated, they are fairly normal.

After an unfortunate intelligence test where the twins become too physically close, Wilbur is sent to school, while Eliza is sent to an institution. She is later released, and comes to visit Wilbur (although she is somewhat angry that he never came to help her.) Eliza reaches out to touch Wilbur, and upon contact have a days-long orgy.

Meanwhile, China has developed a method to shrink people so that they use less resources. Wilbur is visited by a tiny Chinese person, who asks for some of the writings Wilbur and Eliza created as kids. Eliza is given a ticket to Mars, where she soon dies in an avalanche.

Wilbur becomes president of the US, but everything is falling apart. No fuel, plague, etc. Wilbur institutes an idea he and his sister came up with long ago, to assign everyone new middle names, creating artificial families. After the presidency falls apart, he lives on Manhattan, which has been ravaged by the "Green Death," later revealed to be caused when a normal-sized person accidentally inhales a miniature person. He meets a few people from the Church of Jesus Christ the Kidnapped, communicates with his sister in the afterlife through use of a strange machine, travels to see the King of Michigan, and dies shortly after his birthday party.

My thoughts:

Vonnegut has a style of writing all his own. He uses these short passages, often just a few paragraphs at a time, which somehow makes it impossible to stop reading. I enjoyed how he described the bizarre elements as if they were completely ordinary, so that I could easily believe the world Vonnegut created.

He begins the book with an introduction, where he says that this work is the most autobiographical one he's likely to write, noting that "it is about what life feels like to me." He thought of the book idea while on a plane to his uncle's funeral. In the introduction, he also meditates on his sister's death. And in the book, this is how things go. People die. Most people catch the plague. People come into and out of Wilbur's life without warning. There isn't a reason why things happen, just like in real life.

Part of the interest of this novel is what Vonnegut chooses to emphasize. Wilbur's marriage is first described in just 2 pages, and his wife is rarely mentioned again. His sister is center stage with Wilbur during the first half of the book. Then they are separated, he basically forgets about her, and then she dies. However, Eliza is central to the novel. Even though he doesn't see her much after childhood, or before her death, Wilbur constantly mentions his sister and their ideas.

Overall, this was a fun and quick read that also made me think. I enjoyed Vonnegut's imaginative voice, and I liked the concept of life as slapstick. I've felt that way, too.