Mother Night

by Kurt Vonnegut

English language

ISBN:: 978-0-385-33414-3

(15 reviews)

Mother Night is a novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut, first published in February 1962. The title of the book is taken from Goethe's Faust (and ultimately from the Egyptian Goddess Nuit, mother of Osiris, Horus, Isis, Set, and Nephthys, and her counterparts in European religions, such as Skaði). The novel takes the form of the fictional memoirs of Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American, who moved to Germany in 1923 at age 11, and later became a well-known playwright and Nazi propagandist. The story of the novel is narrated (through the use of metafiction) by Campbell himself, writing his memoirs while awaiting trial for war crimes in an Israeli prison. Howard W. Campbell also appears briefly in Vonnegut's later novel Slaughterhouse-Five.

4 editions

Jonathan Arnold reviewed Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

Review of 'Mother Night' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This relatively straight forward and relatively serious novel tells the story of a Nazi propagandist awaiting trial in Israel for crimes against humanity. But he says he is an American spy, passing along coded messages in his virulent broadcasts. He tells his story with emotion and detachment even. He tries to figure out if he can separate out his words from his true feelings and did the hateful things he said, in the end, destroy his soul?

A very interesting book, more "normal" than other Vonnegut books I have read. Howard W Campbell Jr is a complex character, trying to come to grips with what he said and what he did. A fairly short book, despite its nearly 300 page official length, as there is plenty of white space and short chapters. But definitely a page turner, with some profound thoughts on love, estrangement and self delusion. I really enjoyed …

Matt McManus reviewed Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

Review of 'Mother Night' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I attended a book swap party for a friend not long ago. I came home with this book. I’d never heard of it, but how could I not be interested in Vonnegut?

This short book is wonderful. It’s nothing like I expected and everything I could have hoped for. In it, you follow the story of Howard Campbell Jr, as told by himself while in prison for war crimes committed during World War II. The reality is, he was a double agent, working effectively towards both Nazi and American ends.

The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell—keeping perfect time for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, …

The dismaying thing about the classic totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined. Hence the cuckoo clock in Hell—keeping perfect time for eight minutes and thirty-three seconds, jumping ahead fourteen minutes, keeping perfect time for six seconds, jumping ahead two seconds, keeping perfect time for two hours and one second, then jumping ahead a year. The missing teeth, of course, are simple, obvious truths, truths available and comprehensible even to ten-year-olds, in most cases.

What caught me off guard, was how a book that touches on so many of the ugliest parts of war is so full of compassion. The cast of characters is comical. A Nazi/American double agent, an unrepentant white nationalist and anti-Semite, a woman who tries to take over the life of her sister, a Russian spy who abuses his best friend, a drunk, excommunicated priest, and more. All of them sad, broken and ugly but all treated with compassion by Vonnegut. None flatly evil. All conflicted, full of potential but broken by war.