Slapstick or Lonesome No More! - Softcover

Kurt Vonnegut

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385334230 ISBN 13: 9780385334235

Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback, 1999

Synopsis

“Some of the best and most moving Vonnegut.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Slapstick presents an apocalyptic vision as seen through the eyes of the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the United States), a wickedly irreverent look at the all-too-possible results of today’s follies. But even the end of life-as-we-know-it is transformed by Kurt Vonnegut’s pen into hilarious farce—a final slapstick that may be the Almighty’s joke on us all.

“Both funny and sad . . . just about perfect.”—Los Angeles Times
 
“Imaginative and hilarious . . . a brilliant vision of our wrecked, wacked-out future.”—Hartford Courant

About this title

Review:

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.

From the Publisher:

Slapstick presents an apocalyptic vision seen through the eyes of the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the United States), a wickedly irreverent look at the all-too-possible results of today's follies. But even the end of life-as-we-know-it is transformed by Vonnegut's pen into hilarious farce--a final slapstick that may be the Almighty's joke on us all.

"Vonnegut's ongoing puppet show. . .the fabulous is reborn."--John Updike, The New Yorker.

"Imaginative and hilarious... a brilliant vision of wrecked, wacked-out future!" --Hartford Courant

About this edition

• Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0385334230
• ISBN 13: 9780385334235
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 243