I graduated from Pleasant Grove High School in 1968. Pleasant Grove was then a sleepy little town that was about 98% Mormon. Early in the school year a most unusual young man from somewhere on the east coast transferred to PGHS. He took the pseudonym "Nimrod Ragnarok," lived by himself in an apartment which he decorated with psychedelic posters, lava lamps, and other sundry items from the sixties. To say he was different from most of us was an understatement.

One of the major events for any senior class at PGHS is the annual whitewashing of the "G" on the mountain. It was also a time for all the macho males to get drunk. This event occurred at the time that I was beginning to "see the light," that is, I was actively questioning the canon of Mormon doctrine. I was also fulfilling the requirements for graduating from Seminary. I was in transition. I sat on the mountain all night with Nimrod while he got plastered and argued morality. Our conversation mostly concerned alcohol and profanity. To my credit, I argued not from a religious point-of-view, but that alcohol is not healthy and that profanity is a poor substitute for education.

Nimrod later wrote in my yearbook, "Some day you'll learn that livers can't live forever and that profundity is no substitute for profanity." I haven't seen this person since graduation, though whenever I think of him I wish I could. His personal note to me has stuck with me for nearly 30 years now.

So what does this have to do with Kurt Vonnegut's new novel Timequake? Anyone familiar with Vonnegut's work will know that he went through a profane period (probably best exemplified by Breakfast of Champions) at about the middle of his work. He took a lot of criticism and had his works variously banned and burned. He not only complained publicly, he "cleaned up his act" for his last several novels. With Timequake he considers himself a "harmless old fart" that can pretty much do as he pleases. This attitude, combined with an apparent distaste for writing (maybe if he would give up his typewriter for a word processor) combine to produce a series of profane images and language that may offend some.

Timequake, dedicated to "All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental," is reminiscent in several ways with Breakfast of Champions, not only in tone and language, but in following the exploits and preaching of Kilgore Trout. The basic premise of the book is that the expanding universe has a little hiccup in February of 2001. Time, instead of progressing, goes back exactly 10 years. Everyone is compelled to relive the last decade, knowing in advance what will happen and is powerless to change it. Free will is suspended.

When time finally catches up and free will is re-instituted, nearly everyone is so used to the lack of volition that it is a total shock. Anyone who is not sitting or laying down, falls down. Those in moving vehicles are the most unlucky--there is a huge crash all around the world. Nearly everyone everywhere is stuck in PTA (Post Timequake Apathy). Kilgore Trout comes to the rescue. First he tries to tell people that they have free will. Nobody understands so he modifies his message to, "You were sick, but now you're well again, and there's work to do."

Chapter 21 begins with the sentence, "I am Honorary President of the American Humanist Association." Vonnegut has a unique view of our philosophy of life. He states that humanism isn't for most people--religion is a better option. "Humanists, by and large educated, comfortably middle-class persons with rewarding lives like mine, find rapture enough in secular knowledge and hope. Most people can't."

Devotees of Vonnegut, like me, will treasure Timequake. If you haven't yet read any of his other books, I'd recommend that you start with something a bit more conventional. If Mr. Vonnegut, through some quirk of fate should read this, I'd like to say to him, "Consider Kilgore Trout and James Michener, they both continued writing no matter what. I know you are tired, but whether you think so or not, you still have plenty to say. I, for one, am interested in reading what flows from your pen, or typewriter, or whatever."

--Wayne Wilson