Mother Night: A Novel
by Kurt Vonnegut
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Book Reviews of Mother Night: A Novel
Book Review: One of those books...
Summary: 5 Stars
Mother Night is one of those books I pick up during idle time. It's one of those books that calls to be read multiple times. It reads much smoother than Slaughterhouse, which is perhaps why I am more drawn to it. For those who have yet to pick up a Vonnegut book, I would recommend Mother Night as the first to be read. I feel this way because it is, as far as I'm concerned, Vonnegut's "easiest read." (After Mother Night, I would recommend Galapagos as the next to be read on the way to Slaughterhouse. Vonnegut declared Galapagos his best novel I might add)My copy of Mother Night is filled with doggy ears marking witty, vivid, and droll language used by Vonnegut. I find myself peeking into my copy when I need a laugh or two.
In conclusion, I might say that if I were forced to choose one book to read for an eternity, Mother Night would not be it. But if I were allowed 5 books, it would easily make the cut.
Book Review: Howard W. Cambell Jr.'s story
Summary: 4 Stars
This is the second book I've read by Vonnegut(after the exceptional Cat's Cradle) and Vonnegut proves his superior ability to create complicated characters. After finishing the book, I still have no Idea if Cambell was a real person or not. (I don't think so, but the author made him feel like a real person.) My only complaint is that the plot was never clearly defined and it constantly shifted in time. But other than slight lack of focus(which works in a way since it is the last written words of a probably soon to be convicted war criminal possibly about to be hanged, making the story all the more realistic.) Overall this was a great book with all issues such as morality and responsibility. In fact, I loved the idea that a man working as a spy could serve the side he is spying on far more than he could ever serve the ones he is spying for... all unintentionally. Vonnegut loads the story with humorous ironies also.Book Review: Vonnegut's guide to purgatory
Summary: 5 Stars
Kurt Vonnegut must be the most deceptive author in history. His books have such a lithe and jocular style to them they feel like beach-reads, but you always finish them with a knot in the pit of your stomach.
There's a great deal of well crafted sugar to make the medicine go down, but you still always taste it.
Mother Night is by far the darkest of the Vonnegut novels I've read. Even more so then Slaughterhouse-Five. But where Slaughterhouse dealt with the hell that is war, Mother Night traces the purgatory that follows it and the lost wandering of one man that did both the greatest of good and the fiercest of evil.
In each chapeter he gives you the set up for a joke, but intead of a punchline, he tells you the dog just died. It's dark, but always told with that knowing grin and that understated sleight of hand that makes all of his work so easy to overlook, but impossible to ever forget.
Book Review: Classic Vonnegut
Summary: 4 Stars
Although I must maintain that this is not Kurt Vonnegut's best book, it is a very good and certainly enjoyable one, with a biting moral to boot. It also marked a departure for Vonnegut from the science fiction mold that he cast his first two books in. This is also the first time that he dealt with what was perhaps the central experience of his life in his fiction (his experiences in World War II.) The premise of the book is this: a man purporting to be a Nazi radio propagander is actually an American spy. However, after the war is over, the American government refuses to admit that he worked for them, and he is charged as a war criminal. This begs the question: which one was he, really? This is a central question to keep in mind throughout the book, and the ending is startling. It also raises one of Vonnegut's best questions:We are who we pretend to be, so we better be darn careful who we pretend to be.
Book Review: Howard Campbell, the Man and his Guilt
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of Kurt Vonnegut's greatest pieces of literature that offers the reader a look into what happens when you pretend to be something you are not. Whether you make a new face for yourself believing it to be for the right reasons or not, there are always consequences. Having agreed to become a spy within Nazi Germany, our protagonist is so effective at spewing propaganda that when the time comes no one believes the actual truth of the matter regarding Howard Campbell Jr.
His life after the war in a cramped New York apartment is both terrifying for him and depressing, if not boring at times. The real poignancy of this story comes from the interactions between what our main character is supposed to be (a brutal Nazi supporter), truly is (one of the greatest spies of WWII), wants to be, and what happens because of the choices he has made in his not-so-real life.