”This is just the dream of a jailbird. It's not supposed to make sense.“

Reading Vonnegut in your fifth decade is much different from reading him in your third decade. I see much different things in his work now and I'm not as enthusiastic as I once was. His books are still worth reading, but I find them much sadder, less funny. The Watergate scandal and Richard Nixon seem like ancient history now, but it was the biggest news when I was in junior high school. Frankly, it now seems laughably simple and straight forward, but then it required all of us to sit up and pay attention to the behaviour of our elected officials.

I'm struck by Vonnegut's characters who wander through their lives, bouncing off events nearly randomly, giving up much hope of achieving any goals. This was well before the concept of “six degrees of separation,” but these people run into acquaintances frequently and accidentally. Serendipity and bad luck seem to dominate their lives. They meander, wide-eyed, from one circumstance to another, strangely accepting of whatever good fortune or mistreatment they encounter.

”All happiness is religious, I sometimes have to think.”

Perhaps because happiness is down right miraculous in Vonnegut's universe, which highlights the grand indifference of capitalism, the grinding effects of poverty, the duplicitous nature of politicians, the uncertainty of justice and the futility of planning or trying to control anything.

”The economy is a thoughtless weather system and nothing more.”

This was better than I expected. It was after reading this one that I originally fell out of love with Vonnegut. Once more we have a flawed man coming to terms with his various mistakes in a humerous and humanist manner

(3.5)

"She believed, and was entitled to believe, I must say, that all human beings were evil by nature, whether tormentors or victims, or idle standers-by. [...] We were a disease, she said, which had evolved on one tiny cinder in the universe, but could spread and spread."

I am ambivalent about Kurt Vonnegut's Jailbird (1979). On the one hand the author pushes many of my hot buttons and I agree with his choices of human failings to lampoon - human race as a disease affecting the universe is a brilliant metaphor - but on the other, the diagnoses and solutions he offers are way too simplistic and naive. There are some brilliant passages in the novel but many others are ridiculous, childish, or just plain silly.

Jailbird can be divided into two, quite disjoint parts. The first is a memoir of one Walter F. Starbuck, the son of a Polish chauffeur and a Lithuanian cook working for an American millionaire. Thanks to his parents' employer's sponsorship Mr. Starbuck graduates from Harvard, but then - during the grim days of the Depression - he becomes a Communist. Much later he is interrogated by Richard Nixon himself during congressional committee hearings. The future president remembers him and Starbuck obtains a job in Nixon's White House, as a Special Advisor on Youth. He becomes one of the scapegoats in the Watergate affair and goes to prison.

I find the first part realistic, almost "historical", and captivating. Vonnegut focuses on the issues of labor movement in the US. He writes:

"Labor history was pornography of a sort in those days, and even more so in these days. In public schools and in the homes of nice people it was and remains pretty much taboo to tell tales of labor's sufferings and derring-do."

One of the most dramatic fragments of the novel is the depiction of the fictitious Cuyahoga Massacre where the soldiers killed fourteen protesting workers of the Cuyahoga Bridge and Iron, wounded scores of others, and - the worst of all (sarcasm!) - caused serious stutter in Mr. Starbuck's future employer. Another dramatic fragment depicts the factual story of executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, anarchists convicted of murder, but guilty only of "dangerous radical activities."

The novel's second, present-time part that begins on the day of Starbuck's release from prison is a sort of fantasy tale:

"This is just the dream of a jailbird. It's not supposed to make sense."

Here we encounter The RAMJAC Corporation that owns 19% of the entire wealth of the United States and the story focuses on Mr. Starbuck's connections with the mysterious Mrs. Graham who is the majority stockholder. I am not enthusiastic about that part of the novel, not only because I dislike fantasy in literature, but mainly because it dissolves the stronger message of the novel's "historical" part. Although I burst out laughing over the hilarious commentary on the average American level of literacy: Vonnegut writes about an invention needed in the times when "it was getting harder all the time to find employees who understood numbers well": images of products are put on the keys of a cash register rather than numbers.

Vonnegut's trademark sarcastic view of humanity is made clear by the numerous references to the Sermon on the Mount, a collection of teachings attributed to Jesus Christ in which he predicts that the poor in spirit would receive the Kingdom of Heaven, the meek will inherit the Earth, that the merciful will be treated mercifully, and so on. I wonder why the author does not quote the most striking phrase from the Sermon: "You cannot serve God and wealth" because "no one can serve two masters." Would the author be not bold enough to say that capitalism and Christianity cannot coexist?

Infuriatingly uneven work by the author of the great
Slaughterhouse-Five . Here Vonnegut editorializes way too much and does not let the power of his fiction speak for itself. The beautiful passages about Starbuck's wife and his girlfriend virtually disappear buried deep in well-meant yet inept propaganda.

Two and a half stars.

A major disappointment. I've read all but one of Kurt Vonnegut's other books and whilst they're not perfect, there's always something to enjoy. But not here. The wry humour that lifts his other books is strangely absent here, and as a result this feels like a slog.

kurde to jest COŚ. odezwa do samotności? sprawiedliwości? przypadkowości życia?
jak dla mnie najlepsza powieść vonneguta

About the haphazardness of power, economic and political, and the irony and folly of Walter F. Starbuck's life affected by it.

I did not enjoy this story or it's characters, but it's Vonnegut. I recommend anything he writes.

Revise: Aug 30, 2014: I have been thinking about this book since I finished it and wrote my review above. I have come to the conclusion that this book, perhaps more than most of Vonnegut's other novels works on a myriad of themes: friendship, success, failure, injustice, wrong conviction, prejudice, political internecine fighting, capitalism vs. other economic/political systems.

If a book is making one think about it weeks after one has read it, then the book has made an indelible impact. Vonnegut above other authors I have read significantly, have not had the impact he has. There is so much commentary injected in every novel and every short story. His genius is that he doesn't shake and shout this message at you, but that the message, as I have experienced with Jailbird, is weaved seamlessly in the plot, and when one has a sense of the bigger theme, there is yet so much more behind the curtain that is making the circus run.

It strikes me, not for the first time whilst reading Vonnegut that writers can be divided into two camps. The ones who have to work to include that smart-arse-clever line/sentence/phrase they jotted down somewhere, sometime and really really need to get in. Who was it who said that the more you like something you've written down, the more likely it is that you should take it out? And the ones who, even if what they say hits you with a jolt - and Vonnegut's lines often do that - they nonetheless fit in. They aren't forced, they naturally belong just there where the reader sets upon them. There is a hilarious Kilgore Trout story about Einstein trying to get into heaven in Jailbird. He goes through an audit first and then:

Rest here: http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...

“I was making my mind as blank as possible, you see, since the past was so embarrassing and the future so terrifying.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Jailbird



Sometimes, I'm not sure if we are running recklessly toward a Philip K Dick future or a Kurt Vonnegut future. Sometimes, it sure seems like a bit of both. Both authors like to play with ideas of fascism. I think part of the draw, for me, of these two authors right now is how they sensed (Vonnegut especially in this book) the absolute absurdity and reality of economic greed, political malfeasance, incompetence, power, and the inability of the huddled, socialist masses to make much of a damn bit of difference.

Part of Vonnegut's appeal is his everyman's view of things. He doesn't write his books from some ivory tower. His perch seems to be closer to a cranky uncle on a beat up couch, with cigarette burns in his pants, gravy on his shirt, and a wink in his eye.

This is the second book I've read after challenging, bribing my 15-year-old son to read some of my Vonnegut paperbacks. I'm now two books into my own Vonnegut revisit. I just ordered LOA's The Complete Novels 4C BOX SET. Peace.

Jailbird is a fantastic spin to the American depravity, which spanned from even before the devastating Great Depression Era to the modern corruption that the multi-millionaire RAMJAC Corporation have persisted – wonderfully told in a Kurt Vonnegut's stream of consciousness fashion. Meanwhile, the narrator, Walter F. Starbuck had recounted the days prior and following his prison sentence, in which he was somewhat tied to the Watergate scandal – an illegal campaign re-election that was done by the former U.S. President Richard Nixon's administration. Lastly, the novel had taken the courage in retelling an almost forgotten pre-Depression era injustice, involving the real-life martyrdom of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti.

While these chains of thoughts are not completely fleshed out in their own ways, it still flow easily into narrative, as I found the storytelling very appealing and humorous. As it was his approach ever since, the details swimmed into every context in whatever strikes the protagonist's enthusiasm. Not his most imaginative work up to date, but I'm aware that Vonnegut shined this novel forth towards self-awareness and consciousness – acted more as a premonition rather than just a simple historical reminder.

3.5 ⭐️ (05/01/24)

Perhaps Vonnegut's most straightforward commentary upon global politics and labor concerns he viewed as pressing for our generation.

W powieściach Vonneguta zauważalna jest jedna dość charakterystyczna cecha. Większość jego książek posiada senną atmosferę, z której przebija się pewna postawa obojętności do świata. Obojętności, która jest wyczuwalna wśród cech jego bohaterów lub nie wprost wyłania się ona z samej struktury stworzonego przez niego świata. Podobnie jest w tym przypadku: główny bohater Walter Starbuck jest wręcz klasycznym tego przykładem. Sama powieść przenosi nas do czasów rządów Nixona oraz słynnej w stanach afery Watergate. Atmosfera biurowców przesiąkniętych dymem tytoniowym, brutalnego kapitalizmu tłamszącego klasę robotniczą oraz ogromnych korporacji. Jest to jednakże jedna ze słabszych powieści Vonneguta, jaką czytałem. Niemniej jednak warto do niej zajrzeć w przypadku, gdy ktoś już wcześniej czytał jakieś jego powieści, w innym polecałbym zacząć od chociażby „Rzeźni numer pięć”.
In Vonnegut’s stories we can spot one very characteristic feature. Most of his books has calm and even drowsy atmosphere from which emanate very indifferent kind of perceiving the world. This indifference we can feel in the characters created by Vonnegut or we can feel it simply in his writing style. We can see this in the figure of Walter Starbucks who is a classical Vonnegut’s character in this sense. The main story is located in the times of Nixon, the Watergate scandal in USA. The atmosphere of corporation offices saturated with a smoke of cigarettes, brute capitalism destroying the lives of simple workers, large corporations ruling over the world. But this is at the same time one of the worst Vonnegut’s books that I have read. So if you have read some of his works it’s worth to take a shot but if you just want to start reading Vonnegut I would recommend trying something else such as “Slaughterhouse five”.