Vonnegut is brilliant, and his brilliance lies in his weirdness. "Galapagos" is a weird book, but it is brilliant. It is set in both 1986 and exactly one million years later, and the narrator is dead. The central premise of the story is the de-evolution of humanity, primarily to rid ourselves of our worst feature, out great big brains. Those things do nothing but get us into trouble anyway.
Vonnegut tells the story in his characteristically familiar voice, with humor and informality, as if he and the reader are old friend. He never flinches from the unexpected, whether that means jumping from time frame to time frame, or placing a star in front of the names of characters who will die before the sun goes down, or even revealing that the narrator of the story is a ghost. Vonnegut's unique style always keeps you turning the pages of his novels and short stories, but the stories themselves are just as riveting.
"Galapagos" is about the end of humanity, or at least humanity as we know it. There is a small war, a few murders, the "Nature Cruise of the Century" (featuring Jackie Kennedy Onassis), and a pestilence that threatens all of human kind. Eventually humans are relegated to one isolated colony, the place where the miracle of biological evolution was first recognized, the Galapagos Islands. Safe on the rocky islands, humanity promptly continues to evolve and do away with our extraneous bits. Vonnegut is unclear about exactly what we become, there are flippers involved and many fish are eaten, but he is very clear about the biggest evolutionary step we achieve over the next one million years; our brains shrink. They weren't really necessary anyway. The rest of the book is example after example of this idea. Humans aren't all bad, in fact, we are really good at heart, but our over-sized brains keep us from becoming as superior as we could be.
The whole book reminded you a lot of a conversation you and your oldest son had last year. One day, from the back seat of the car he asked, "Dad, what's the smartest animal in the world?"
Reminding him that questions like that don't have easy answers, you replied, "Well, buddy, some people think humans are, but it really depends on what you mean when you say 'smartest'."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Well, what is smart?" you asked him. "I mean, some people think we are the smartest because we can build all of these things." You gestured around the car as you drove down the highway. "Cars, airplanes, roads, skyscrapers, things like that."
"Yeah?" six year old Nico responded, obviously wondering where you were going with this.
"But dolphins are pretty darn smart too." you reminded him. "Just because we can't communicate with them doesn't mean they might not be smarter than us."
"But... they can't make all of this stuff," he pointed out. "Cars, airplanes, roads, and skyscrapers."
"Ah," you said, savoring the moment. You had walked him right into the trap. "But what if dolphins are smarter than us because the realize that they don't NEED all of this stuff?" Nico's brows furrowed and you kept leading him down the rabbit hole. "All of these things are destroying the environment we live in. We keep building them anyway, even though they all might end up killing us in the end. What if dolphins are really the ones who are the smartest because they realized that making all of this stuff doesn't make you smarter or better? What if what really makes you smart is being happy with just swimming in the ocean eating fish and leaping out of the water and raising a pod of your own little dolphins? It all depends on what you mean when you say 'smart.'"
"Yeah!" Nico said, realizing what you were saying. "Maybe dolphins are the smartest, or maybe whales are... or maybe elephants! I've heard they are really smart too. What if they've got this all figured out too?" You stole a glance in the rear view mirror to see his face. The look he had as he reexamined the world outside the window... As he began to see reality in a new light... That's the same look you had on your face as you read "Galapagos."
But Kurt Vonnegut will always be a better story teller than you.
On to the next book!
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