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"When all was said and done, the creatures of the �Ҳ���á�貹���Dz� Islands were a pretty listless bunch compared with rhinos and hippos and lions and elephants and so on."

Leon Trotsky Trout is as dead as a dodo but is nevertheless the incorporeal narrator of a story told a million years into our future.
Trout recounts a sequence of evolutionary events that began in 1986 as a bunch of bipedal misfits gathered in Ecuador for 'The Nature Cruise of the Century.'
Looking back at humankind from a million-years-in-the-future perspective, we were a freakish bunch, possessing oversized brains that we didn't make the best use of, and even gave names to dogs.
Also, because our brains were the size of fat mangoes and not yet atrophied by evolution, a discussion between a husband and wife under stress could end up like a fight between two blindfolded people on roller skates.

Captain Adolf von Kleist, who doesn't know shit from Shinola, is somehow left in charge of this ill-fated, over-hyped maiden voyage to the �Ҳ���á�貹���Dz� Islands.
(I can assure you that the story is better read than explained).

I was a latecomer to Vonnegut and fell in love with his writing quicker than you could say "woolly mammoth." He elucidates with the conviction of a mad prophet; his prose is cheerily unfussy and he is always wickedly provocative.
And, in keeping with the 'circle of life' theme, there are fish metaphors aplenty.
For no reason other than authorial whimsy, he anoints any character who is about to die with an asterisk (so we know in advance that they are going to pop their clogs) and mischievously over-explains things that are blindingly obvious to anyone bar our tiny-brained human descendants, one million years into the future.

Vonnegut had a droll sense of humour that I found immediately enjoyable, and Monty Python fans are sure to like his style. But there is a great deal of sagacity to be found in his eccentricity.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that we humans prove to be the architects of our own downfall. Despite our hefty brains, we are somehow ignorant of the perils of war, financial crashes, global viruses, world overpopulation, climate change and meteorites hitting our planet.
Ain't that the truth?

The only carp I have with Vonnegut is his scattergun approach to plot lines. The story staggers backwards and forwards like a drunken sailor in a hall of mirrors and I felt that the philosophical quotes interrupted - rather than enhanced- the narrative.

In truth, I didn't know what to expect from Vonnegut's �Ҳ���á�貹���Dz�, but was pleasantly surprised, loving every daft, dizzy, witty moment of this prescient read!