As such a vocal lover of Kurt Vonnegut, it was embarrassing to realize that up until last week I’d only ever read one and a half of his novels. One whole of Cat’s Cradle, and one half of Slaughterhouse 5 (the other half lost somewhere in the staff quarters of the Natural History Museum. So in this realization I set out (visited Amazon.co.uk – so sue me) to buy a few more of his books: Galapágos and Mother Night. Galapágos is a story set one million years into the future, looking back one million years into the past; roughly equating to, the present day: 1986. (Nice one, Vonnegut).
Within the present day of 1986, a number of Americans have come to the Galapagos Islands during a time of economic drought (e.g. adverse poverty), thanks to land-owner Ecuador’s imminent bankruptcy. Each visitor has come to the island with the intent of sailing on the “Nature Cruise of the Century”, but each has a different and not necessarily truthful reason for being there. In time we’ll discover that half these characters are not even who they say they are. James Wait is a successful conman who spends one week to the next convincing fragile – and preferably recently widowed – women into marrying him and handing over their life savings.
Mary Hepburn is one such recently widowed, vulnerable woman, formerly a school teacher. Hisako and Zenji Hiroguchi are a Japanese husband and wife soon to have a child born with seal fur. And then there’s the captain, an incapable narcissist with no knowledge of how to sail a commercial ship. Or a non-commercial ship for that matter. So, the action unfolds. One more thing though, says Vonnegut, these people are soon to be the only remaining hope for the continuation of humanity. Them and six young girls from a tribe known as the Kanka-Bonas.
