Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1994. [Vol. 2.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 22)
STUDIES - Donald E. Morse: The Joyful Celebration oflJfe. Kurt Vonnegut's Affirmative Vision in Galapagos and Bluebeard
In contrast to Cat's Cradle which apocalyptically concludes with the world coming to an end, and which reflects Bokonon's belief that "Maturity. .. is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything" (134), Galápagos suggests that laughter and good humor may yet enable humanity to survive the "bitter disappointment" of the inevitable discovery that the world, humanity, and, yes, human beings themselves are not only imperfect but are also an endangered species. When asked on an employment application form what his avocation was, Bokonon wrote: "Being alive"; when asked his occupation he wrote: "Being dead" {Cat's Cradle, 95). Where Cat's Cradle concentrates on human myopia which chooses the human vocation of death as all life perishes, Galápagos emphasizes the human "avocation," as the species mutates in order to survive. Rather than the dark apocalyptic humor of Cat's Cradle , Galápagoés comedy is lighter and more positive. Brian Aldiss's response to Galápagos sums up the novel's strengths: "Sprightly, funny, suspenseful, Candide-like, and endearingly ingenious in its telling, .. ." 8 "... the book's a joy." 9 Galápagos , despite its disaster scenario, has about it an air of optimism and joy which it shares with Bluebeard which also describes many defeats and short-comings but of one person rather than the whole of humanity. Rabo Karabekian's mother survived the great massacre of the Armenians by the Turks —which added the word "genocide" to the languages of the world (3)—while her son lives to witness the end of the most destructive war yet fought on European soil when another megalomaniac practiced genocide in his attempt to systematically exterminate a portion of the human race. Yet Karabekian's biography demonstrates that through self-acceptance, and the serious use of imagination and creativity, human beings can become reconciled to their weakness and fragility, while still remaining outraged at human stupidity and greed, and the many disastrous self-defeating schemes such "big brained" rational creatures concoct, let alone attempt to implement 8 The Trillion Year Spree (329). 9 letter to the author 14 November 1988. 117
