Vonnegut's Timequake

While visiting Elon I was loaned Kurt Vonnegut's Timequake (thanks Jessica and Mark!). Vonnegut's never really done it for me (between Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five) and this book was no exception. A handful of times I laughed out loud, but for the most part it wasn't anything special. That said, all the short chapters made it a great travel book to fill in those random dead times on the road.

Here are two passages that I lolled at the most. Enjoy!

I do not propose to discuss my love life. I will say that I still can't get over how women are shaped, and that I will go to my grave wanting to pet their butts and boobs. I will say, too, that lovemaking, if sincere, is one of the best ideas Satan put in the apple she gave to the serpent to give to Eve.

And this joke:

He would have known several jokes I know, like the one Fred Bates Johnson told one time, when he and Father and I, just a kid, and some others, were hunting down in Brown County. According to Fred, a bunch of guys like us went hunting for deer and moose up in Canada. Somebody had to do the cooking, or they would all starve to death.

They drew straws to see who would cook while the others hunted from dawn to dusk. To make the joke more immediate, Fred said it was Father who got the short straw. Father could cook. Mother couldn't. She was proud she couldn't cook, and wouldn't wash dishes and so on. I liked to go over to other kids' houses, where their mothers did those things.

The hunters agreed that anybody who complained about Father's cooking became the cook. So Father prepared worse and worse meals, while the others were having one hell of a good time in he forest. No matter how awful a supper was, though, the hunters pronounced it lip-smacking delicious, clapping Father on the back and so on.

After they marched off one morning, Father found a pile of fresh moose poop outside. He friend it in motor oil. That night he served it as steaming patties.

The first guy to taste one spit it out. He couldn't help himself! He spluttered, "Jesus Christ! That tastes like moose poop friend in motor oil!"

But then he added, "Good good, but good!"