Rabo on Galapagos (7th of January 2011)
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut is not a good book. Of course, Vonnegut was too smart to write a bad book, but I am afraid
that he didn't score with "Galapagos". The main problem of the book is that it is too long without a real reason. Vonnegut
should have perhaps realized the idea in the form of a short story, nothing would be lost in the message and the reader would
save much time. Characters of "Galapagos" are not convincing, and even when they are convincing, they are not really needed in
the book. Although, "Galapagos" is a book that revolves around the idea that people are generally not really needed, in
space and on this Earth, so that the needlessness of the characters in the book is somehow justified. But it can also be irritating.
As its name suggests, and all who know something about Darwin also heard about Galapagos, the book is about evolution.
On a superficial level. On another level, the story is really set up around and on Galapagos island so there is an additional
reason for the book title. The part of the book that can be related to Darwin and evolution exposes an idea that humans are
an evolutionary "appendix", creatures of hypertrophic brain that constantly leads them to conflict with the surrounding and
with other humans. Such creatures must of course get extinct and that is a theme that Vonnegut develops both in a direct and
indirect sense. I am intentionally being vague so to not spoil someone's pleasure of reading, because although the book did not
thrill me, and it even disapointed me a bit, I still think that I didn't waste my time reading it.
Society created by creatures with big brains is based on a totally strange assertions that are completely alien to other
creatures on Earth. Human brain is a structure so complex that it can be fooled and mislead by weird constructions and even
hypnotized and brought to a state of blissful and stupid trust in the people on top that supposedly lead human societies. One
of the crazy and unnatural constructions of gigantic human brains if a capitalistic economy that is based on some heavy
illusions, some of which break the conservation laws in physics. At least that is what Vonnegut said. And just when all these
upside-down constructions finally meet the conservation laws, the story of "Galapagos" begins, as does a struggle of human
specie to survive. And whether the "humans" will survive in the end and how, I will not tell you, I'll let Vonnegut tell you.
At this place, the readers of >> Croatian version of this page can read two excerpts
from the book, but I cannot do the same for you, English readers. Sorry. I read the book in Croatian translation.
The drawing above is my portrait of Rabo Karabekian on some Galapagos beach. I sat close to two iguanas that stuffed themselves with a seaweed and waited on a hot rock for the almost indigestible food to cook... That's some evolution...
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Last updated on 7th of January 2011.