Z/Web

Author: Kurt Vonnegut

Interesting and unusual book. I’m not sure exactly when it was written (I listened to the audiobook so I couldn’t exactly flip to the copyright page), but it’s obviously quite dated based on the technological terminology used. It’s set in the future in a 1984-ish totalitarian state. It’s a world where machines are replacing humans at all their jobs, upsetting the working class. It’s an interesting idea of a society, though many of the machines are hiliariously primitive (reminding me of the tech on the Flintstones). For example, there’s nothing like the Internet and even computers are hardly mentioned — instead there’s focus on automated machines that print and deliver newspapers.

But I found myself frustrated at the glacial pacing of the story. Individual scenes are entertaining and funny and interesting, but I wanted more of the actual story. The story, per se, is about our our main character, an elite of society, waking up and realizing what’s wrong with the world and what’s missing in his life. It is interesting but it just takes so long for this to happen. Many of the extra characters, like his wife, are purposely sketchy and thin, which meant I didn’t care about them, but of course they are important to the main character, so many scenes involve those other characters — meaning I was disinterested in many scenes. The whole thing just got tedious after a while. I think this is the type of book I would like better on a second reading. Once I actually know where the story’s going I’m more apt to enjoy the scenes for their own sake. As it was, I kept itching for the scene to finish so I could get on with the plot, which never did get going. Not Vonnegut’s best best work. It’s not bad — some aspects are quite brilliant and hilarious — but as a novel the thing feels long and is hard to get through.

It is obvious the franchise is losing steam. In the first few films the jokes and visual puns came at a machine gun pace, almost too rapid for comprehension — but in this one there were many long moments without any jokes at all. But it was still enjoyable, if not quite so innovative and funny. The plot was interesting and compelling. The story is about Shrek feeling overwhelmed as a new dad and husband and longing for his old life, so he makes a deal with Rumpelstiltskin to have his old life back just for one day. Of course there’s a catch as he ends up in an alternate future where he never rescued and married Fiona. That, of course, makes him realize that his old life was great. Worse, at the end of his “day” he’ll disappear, because in this version of the world he was never born. Only true love can break his contract with Rumpelstiltskin, so he has only one day to find Fiona and convince her that she loves him, though she’s never met him. Interesting story, though perhaps too serious at times. It was amusing to see the various familiar characters in different roles (Donkey was way less annoying), but that running gag got old fairly quickly. Overall this is a decent entry in the franchise and though it won’t disappoint too much, it’s not remarkable like the first film.