224 pages
Italian language
Published June 28, 2013 by Feltrinelli.
Il libro è il racconto in prima persona di un americano trasferitosi con la famiglia in Germania dopo la prima guerra mondiale, che vi resta anche dopo la presa del potere di Hitler e diventa la voce della propaganda nazista di Goebbels per gli Stati Uniti. All'inizio e alla fine del libro il protagonista si trova in una prigione israeliana, in attesa di processo per crimini di guerra, lì ripensa alla propria vita e decide di scrivere le sue memorie. Il racconto, presentato come un autentico documento storico, risulta un'attuala riflessione sulla guerra, la violenza e le loro cause. Dal libro, pubblicato nel 1961, è stato tratto anche un film interpretato da Nick Nolte nel 1996.
5/5
Recommend (identity/morality)
I have confused feelings towards the characters in this book. Some I despise and some I can't come to a decision about. That is exactly why I am giving this book a 5, it fulfilled everything it set out to do. Vonnegut emphasises the grey between black and white morals like no other.
Vonnegut is a frustrating author to me. He has a sharp wit and he picks worthwhile targets to satirize. But his books are thin and scattershot. This one leaves me with the impression that he has not really thought through what Nazism was or the specific ways that the U.S. was morally compromised and ideologically conflicted during World War II and the years immediately before and after. It's hard to take Howard W. Campbell seriously as a character because he often seems to exist on the page mainly so that Vonnegut can just riff on his chosen themes.
Re-reading this (in 2020) many, many years after I read it last, and it is astonishing how much more immediate and pressing the anti-semitism and the absurdity of the lunatic fringe now seem. The hatred has been with us for a long time, of course, but why did we feel so insulated from it 20 years ago? Were we naive or complicit way back when the 90s were coming to a close?
