DoctorGee finished reading Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., …
Vonnegut is a frustrating author to me. He has a sharp wit and picks worthwhile targets to satirize, but his books seem to fizzle out, lose focus and indulge in silly comic book-style humor. This one starts out from an intriguing premise. The book is presented as the found memoir of Howard W. Campbell, a Nazi war criminal who claims to have been a deep undercover American agent during World War II. He is wildly successful as a Nazi propagandist broadcasting on the radio, but claims to have passed secret messages to the Allies during his broadcasts. After the war, he is abandoned by his handlers and eventually arrested and taken to Israel to stand trial. The problem is that it is hard to take Campbell or any of the other characters seriously or understand why they act like they do. They mainly exist on the page so that Vonnegut …
Vonnegut is a frustrating author to me. He has a sharp wit and picks worthwhile targets to satirize, but his books seem to fizzle out, lose focus and indulge in silly comic book-style humor. This one starts out from an intriguing premise. The book is presented as the found memoir of Howard W. Campbell, a Nazi war criminal who claims to have been a deep undercover American agent during World War II. He is wildly successful as a Nazi propagandist broadcasting on the radio, but claims to have passed secret messages to the Allies during his broadcasts. After the war, he is abandoned by his handlers and eventually arrested and taken to Israel to stand trial. The problem is that it is hard to take Campbell or any of the other characters seriously or understand why they act like they do. They mainly exist on the page so that Vonnegut can freely explore his chosen themes. Also, I'm not even convinced of Vonnegut's moral reasoning with respect to the involvement of the U.S. in World War II or the Cold War. It seems very superficial, despite Vonnegut witnessing first hand the bombing of Dresden.