Country: USA
Genre: Literary
Pages: 268
Reading Mother Night, I had a second honeymoon with Kurt Vonnegut. You know, that exhilarating feeling you get when you discover a writer that makes your mind spin so fast it smokes? It happened to me when I read Slaughterhouse-Five many years ago and it happened again last week. There are clear reasons why Kurt Vonnegut was the fucking man. His style was lean and fluid, yet packed with complex ideas. He tackled issues so well, he made them universal and time-proofed. Who cares about another nazi story nowadays? Well, good ol' Kurt makes you care about it. Mother Night was the seventh book I read for the Back To The Classics 2011 challenge and it's my favorite, along with The Executioner's Song. It's a complex and emotional novel, yet Vonnegut's style is spare and accurate.
The nazi in question is Howard J. Campbell, an American playwright who grew up and got published and produced in Germany. When the nazis seize power in 1933, Campbell decides not to leave and starts working for Goebbels' propaganda department. He does quite good for himself over there. He is given a broadcast that gets wildly popular. So much that his biggest political enemies (such as Franklin Roosevelt) tune in to listen to him. Howard is an artist, first and foremost, and his art is what's important for him. Being moving, convincing and awe-inspiring is what he seeks. Issues of race and politics are not his concern. He's so detached from the conflict that nobody knows he's an American spy. The book opens in Jerusalem in 1961 where Howard awaits his trial for war crimes and there's nobody to confess the truth to, except disinterested guards and fellow convicts like the infamous Adolf Eichmann.
Mother Night was my selection for "Wartime Setting Book" in the challenge and it proved to be more complex than your traditional war novel. Its scope is covering many conflicts World War II is the main one discussed, but there are many allusions to the cold war paranoia. That "there is an enemy within" vibe that characterized the McCarthy years in the U.S. Vonnegut's novel investigates the moral implications of being an artist in a time of war. For those who lived through World War II, could there be something else to their lives? Could they try to live in margin of the conflict? What makes Howard J. Campbell such a terrific character is that he's longing for the same things everybody does. A little quiet to work, and a life with his wife Helga, whom he loves with the purest feelings. But everybody is so caught up in that conflict, they can only see him for the role he played in the war. Mother Night is Howard Campbell's attempt to remain human inside the unstoppable political machine.
Kurt Vonnegut said he knew the moral of Mother Night. "You are who you pretend to be" he says in the foreword. It's accurate, but let me suggest another one. Good and evil are the pawns of human judgment and human history. Keeping a World War II story fresh is a huge accomplishment in itself, but doing it the way Vonnegut did, by showing every side of the conflict as flawed and human was...wow. Mother Night says something very simple. You are human. Yet sometimes being and remaining human is the task of a lifetime. Reading Vonnegut is easy to read and enjoyable, yet his novels address the most difficult issues of humanity. I am not the one to throw those words around, but Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is a master. None write with such a graceful prose and manage to keep relevant and universal in their discourse. Read Mother Night because it's quick and funny. Love it because it speaks of something we all share.
The nazi in question is Howard J. Campbell, an American playwright who grew up and got published and produced in Germany. When the nazis seize power in 1933, Campbell decides not to leave and starts working for Goebbels' propaganda department. He does quite good for himself over there. He is given a broadcast that gets wildly popular. So much that his biggest political enemies (such as Franklin Roosevelt) tune in to listen to him. Howard is an artist, first and foremost, and his art is what's important for him. Being moving, convincing and awe-inspiring is what he seeks. Issues of race and politics are not his concern. He's so detached from the conflict that nobody knows he's an American spy. The book opens in Jerusalem in 1961 where Howard awaits his trial for war crimes and there's nobody to confess the truth to, except disinterested guards and fellow convicts like the infamous Adolf Eichmann.
Mother Night was my selection for "Wartime Setting Book" in the challenge and it proved to be more complex than your traditional war novel. Its scope is covering many conflicts World War II is the main one discussed, but there are many allusions to the cold war paranoia. That "there is an enemy within" vibe that characterized the McCarthy years in the U.S. Vonnegut's novel investigates the moral implications of being an artist in a time of war. For those who lived through World War II, could there be something else to their lives? Could they try to live in margin of the conflict? What makes Howard J. Campbell such a terrific character is that he's longing for the same things everybody does. A little quiet to work, and a life with his wife Helga, whom he loves with the purest feelings. But everybody is so caught up in that conflict, they can only see him for the role he played in the war. Mother Night is Howard Campbell's attempt to remain human inside the unstoppable political machine.
Kurt Vonnegut said he knew the moral of Mother Night. "You are who you pretend to be" he says in the foreword. It's accurate, but let me suggest another one. Good and evil are the pawns of human judgment and human history. Keeping a World War II story fresh is a huge accomplishment in itself, but doing it the way Vonnegut did, by showing every side of the conflict as flawed and human was...wow. Mother Night says something very simple. You are human. Yet sometimes being and remaining human is the task of a lifetime. Reading Vonnegut is easy to read and enjoyable, yet his novels address the most difficult issues of humanity. I am not the one to throw those words around, but Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is a master. None write with such a graceful prose and manage to keep relevant and universal in their discourse. Read Mother Night because it's quick and funny. Love it because it speaks of something we all share.
War Time Setting Classic