Mother Night: A Novel
by Kurt Vonnegut
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kurt VonnegutEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1999-05-11
ISBN: 0385334141
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780385334143
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of Mother Night: A Novel
Book Review: One of Vonnegut's Finest Books
Summary: 5 Stars
Kurt Vonnegut was treated by psychiatrists but, since I'm a veteran, too, I believe his troubles might have been entirely PTSD. Vonnegut was obsessed with Europe in WWII and wrote much about it. One of his finest novels -- the only one that wasn't sci fi or fantasy -- is MOTHER NIGHT, made into a 1990s movie starring Nick Nolte. It's worth seeing, although Nolte was miscast.
But, as usual, the book is much better. MOTHER NIGHT is the story of Howard Campbell, an American who is in Germany, married to a German woman, when WWII breaks out. Under Army Intelligence orders Howard acts as a "Lord HawHaw" in Germany during WWII and sends code signals to the Allies during his broadcasts. His apolitical (and much loved) wife is the daughter of a fanatic Nazi, and Howard is pulled this way and that until he doesn't understand his own loyalties, becoming bewildered and confused. After losing his wife in the war Howard wants to die and turns himself in to the Israelis as a war criminal, but ironically, is released when the US Army vouches for him. He returns to the US for the first time since about 1920. You should not expect a happy ending.
Now and then Vonnegut throws in comic relief to lighten an essentially bleak story, especially his lampoons of white supremacists in America and the hilarious name of a Nazi, "Kraptauer".
DON'T MISS THIS BOOK IF YOU HAVEN'T READ IT. Superb psychology, and in a way it's Vonnegut's own story, because of his ultra-German upbringing in a German neighborhood in Indianapolis, where every block had a string quartet and someone who could recite Schiller's poems and direct Lessing's plays in German. Although he hated Hiler he was raised to be proud of being a cultural German, as every child should be of his/her own heritage. How conflicted Kurt Vonnegut must have been! Why didn't the Army send German Americans to the Pacific, as they sent Japanese Americans to Europe?
Summary of Mother Night: A Novel
Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.Lawyers & Criminals Books
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