"Come amare la gente che non serve a nulla?"

Vonnegut, anche con questo libro minore, si conferma uno dei migliori scrittori che abbia mai letto. Il suo tipico umorismo in quest'opera tocca argomenti quali la critica sociale, critica verso l'economia, critica verso i valori americani e questioni morali.
Non è l'ideale per chi vuole iniziare a leggere Vonnegut, ma lo consiglio per chi ha letto le sue opere maggiori e vuole approfondire le sue tematiche ricorrenti, soprattutto la figura di Kilgore Trout, lo scrittore di fantascienza trash che fa più volte capolino nei suoi scritti.

2nd time reading this book: Vonnegut’s satire of American aristocracy is as poignant today as I imagine it would’ve been when he wrote it in 1965, perhaps unsurprisingly so, as the type of ‘old money’ ideology he paints in this novel is still the same kind of ‘old money’ ideology that exists today.

Written in the earlier half of his catalog, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater occasionally drags its feet when considering Vonnegut’s oeuvre in its totality - but that’s only in comparing him against himself. In general, what I would call a ‘mediocre’ Vonnegut book is still better than 90% of everything else in the library. The humor, social commentary, and story are on point, as always, it just lacks the escalating whimsy/absurdity of my favorite Vonnegut books. What it does do exceedingly well is paint the rich as both the victims and victimizers while parodying the complicated American relationship with philanthropy and money.

In the end, there are few writers who can shine a beautiful light on all of humanity’s unflattering angles quite like Kurt Vonnegut can. This book is no exception. Worth a read? ABSOLUTELY, especially in this day and age (circa January, 2017)

My favorite bits are the two pornographic novels-within-the-novel, Garvey Ulm's Get With Child a Mandrake Root and Kilgore Trout's Venus on the Half-Shell, both marvelously suggested by illustrative paragraphs. Philip José Farmer was tasteless enough actually to write the second book. I suppose we can at least be glad that he didn't get around to writing the first one as well.

Kurt Vonnegut’s 5th novel and to this point in his illustrious career he has let the satire and sarcasm take off big time in what is in my opinion the best novel he has produced so far.
The obvious and major theme is the use of inherited wealth.

Should one be generous with that inherited wealth? Protagonist Eliot Rosewater is certainly generous. His father is sure he should not be and is outraged by that so questions his sanity.
Eliot does have a breakdown of kinds as he tries to help all that he comes into contact with that need assistance. Or is he driven to the edge by the pressures of his father and his class, and those that have an eye on his wealth for other purposes than humanitarian? Is it his philanthropy that is a pressure in itself adding to his breaking down? His guilt as to his part in the death of innocents in WW2?

The purposes of philanthropy run deep in this novel. Should one help those in need of assistance if they have the money to do so or if one is in a position of political power should one; for example, bring in legislation to curb the viewing of bodily hair as an attempt to curb pornography to assist helping the poor and morally degenerate work harder to rise above their station in life and be more than “people that have no use”.
Vonnegut writes in such a way that either side of the questions could be answered in the affirmative or negative. It all depends on ones view.


As I have got older I personally think that political debate is the same old thing, it isn’t much different than it was in my teens, thematically it never changes. This satire from 1965 to me makes fun of the same political divide we talk about today and will do so into the future. Life is the same old same old with technological advancements changing the surrounds. First there is birth and then there is death and just luck as to how one gets to live out their life in-between. This is an excellent satire and far better than I recall in my youth. A character in the book, a highly ambitious lawyer has a poster on his wall of a Roy Cohen who I had no recall of. His wiki made quite a read and if anything made me agree with my own feelings about political debate being the same old thing then it is the life of Roy Cohen. Cohens life reads as a Vonnegut satire.


This is a wonderful book and stands the test of time. It is a read that is far better than I recall from my youth and is highly recommended for its timelessness on the topic.


In order of publication and my reading of Vonnegut’s novels.

My review of number 1 Player Piano here.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My review of number 2 The Sirens Of Titan here. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My review of number 3 Mother Night here.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
My review of number 4 Cats Cradle here.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter...At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”



Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater or Pearls Before Swine looks at a man with nearly unlimited money, Eliot Rosewater, who wants to help the poor but more often seems out of touch, eccentric or downright insane. There is a cartoon strip with this novel’s subtitle, 'Pearls Before Swine.' Like Vonnegut’s own writing, this comic strip offers dark humor, crazy characters and lots of social commentary. I’m not positive Stephan Pastis, the creator, took the name of his comic strip from Vonnegut’s title; however, it makes for an interesting comparison.

While Vonnegut doesn’t personally appear in his own novels, his alter egos most certainly do. Partially based on a fellow writer, but also undoubtedly Vonnegut himself, one of my favorite characters, Kilgore Trout, makes his first appearance in a Vonnegut novel. Likewise, In 'Pearls Before Swine,' Stephas Pastis provides commentary in his own appearances. Something else worth mentioning, Eliot Rosewater’s sporadic attempts to do good don’t offer much of a plot, but again like the comic strip, his actions are replete with social commentary. Maybe more could be said about the two, but I’ll end the comparison there. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is a solid Vonnegut read! And did I mention this was Kilgore Trout’s first appearance in Vonnegut’s work? 4.5 stars

“In time, almost all men and women will become worthless as producers of goods, food, services, and more machines, as sources of practical ideas in the areas of economics, engineering, and probably medicine, too. So—if we can’t find reasons and methods for treasuring human beings because they are human beings, then we might as well, as has so often been suggested, rub them out.”

The dignity of human beings, rather than any specific plot, is always close to the surface of Vonnegut’s works. From his novel Player Piano, on, Vonnegut has also been prophetic about the direction of automation replacing human beings. But he is vehement that people have a value outside of any job or any role they might have in society. What’s working against the tendency to value people, however, is greed exemplified in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by corporations.

“Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.”

Back on my bullshit (logging another Kurt Vonnegut book on goodreads.com)

God Bless you Mr.Vonnegut.

The current head of the Rosewater Foundation, Eliot Rosewater, is a very peculiar man. He was born to a rich family, has more money than he could ever spend on his own, and yet all he wants to do is help the poor. There are people conspiring to declare him insane so they can install a new head of the Foundation. Someone they can manipulate into diverting some of that money into their undeserving hands.

The narrative is so disjointed, never finding a focus. It wanders back and forth from past to present and from character to character, some of whom have no relevance to the plot, but serve to illustrate the theme in some way.

It's the same theme of Player Piano, but more mature and better-defined. In this day and age when man's jobs are replaced by machines, people are still expected to make a living. (Vonnegut predicts that if this trend continues, people will need two doctorates just to find a job. We're almost there.) As the poor are pushed into unemployment, the wealthy people in the country teach the poor to feel bad about themselves for not having enough determination to get rich, as they themselves have done.

The rich people in this book believe all poor people are just lazy freeloaders who should thank the rich for all that they've created, such as the sunrise and the ocean.

However, none of the rich people earned their money through determination and hard work. They're living off the wealth their ancestors made, and because they have money, it's easy for them to make more. Hell, their money grows on its own without them having to do a thing to it. Their ancestors didn't even make their fortunes by working hard, but by swindling the right people and making investments that happened to pay off.

Vonnegut mocks the conservatives who tell the people they must work hard to achieve success. He even pokes at the people who think wealth redistribution is the answer to America's problems by showing that people who gain large sums of money become useless, too.

That's the heart of the story: uselessness. The poor have no money, their jobs are replaced by machines, and so they have no purpose in the world anymore. The rich have money, don't need to work, and therefore have no purpose in the world either. The two case studies of uselessness, a rich town and a poor town, show the same futility. Opposite sides of the same coin.

The rich think it's pointless to help the poor because if you help the poor, you take away their incentive to help themselves. Charity, welfare, etc. make people dependent on the handouts of others and they become lazy and useless. Eliot discovers this several times, when he buys something for a person, only for that person to squander it.

Vonnegut shows that the rich have had handouts of their own, primarily though inheritance, and have become the very definition of "useless" they despise.

Only a few have actually done well under the free market system, and they are still slaving away to get by.

It's rich verses poor in this disjointed, meandering tale of human beings who struggle against uselessness. Fifty years after this book was published, and people are still saying the same things. Nothing has changed at all since the 60's.

Is Eliot insane? For daring to think of people as human beings instead of judging them by what use they are to the world, yes. He is.

Так. Сподобалося
Ні. Не сподобалося
Дочитала лише тому, що то Воннеґут. За Ґалапаґос я ладна читати все у автора, але мені не вистачило чи то обізнаності американського буття, чи то взагалі кебети, щоб повністю оцінити масштаб твору. Були цілі глави, які я просто пробігала очима, але більша частина все ж таки резонувала.
Так це більш лінійний, але все ж таки вінегрет: оця змішаність персонажів і часів, рівнів сприймання від «так! і я так це бачу» до «Господи, а тут що мається на увазі

A funny exploration of capitalism and definitions of sanity.

I had a friend back in Pittsburgh who was incredibly smart and very kind and funny, but had a tendency toward literary snobbishness. (I know: can you imagine such a person?) Once he had something disparaging to say about Kurt Vonnegut, I can't remember exactly what. Some well timed comment that pretty much wrote him off as a hack, and I recall being almost hurt by it, seeing as how Vonnegut wrote so much stuff I loved as a teen.

And I guess that's maybe the rub. I loved Vonnegut as a teen. Sure I only read  Slaughterhouse 5 and  Cat's Cradle and the collected stories.  Breakfast of Champions.  Slapstick? I read like five of his books.  Timequake, six. And so when I found this audiobook I thought it would be a good one to listen to on my trip.

It was not good. Vonnegut's Redistribute All Wealth moral is completely overbearing, and so whatever aims for satire seemed to just fall off to dumb and obvious caricature. (Quickest plot summary ever: The scion of a wealthy family is crazy, maybe, but just so crazy that he considers actually helping people rather than using them to create more wealth.) The final scene reads only like a punchline. I could practically hear the rimshot at the end of the book, and this is no way for a novel to end. Maybe a short story, which form maybe Vonnegut should have reserved for this story.

Also, I don't understand why he has such a loathing, in this novel, for dependent clauses joined with anything other than a stupid, belchlike comma. Let me cue up one of the chapters at random and write the first example I hear (okay that took twenty seconds, is how rampant these sentences are in the novel): "Norman Mushari killed the afternoon by driving over to Newport, paid a quarter to tour the famous Rumford mansion."

Am I the only person who reads in such a sentence a downright scorn for the English language? There's like this gross boredom with the actions of the character, as though whatever motivations or mental processes that linked all causal events in the novel were of no concern. One can postmodernly argue these are all myths, but while Vonnegut gets lumped in with the postmodernists he's not that kind of postmodernist. I don't recall this construction in his other novels, but I wasn't as sensitive to syntax I was then, was instead a reader for story.

Man, even typing one out feels like rubbing someone else's feces into my keyboard.

Rude, but Not Construed

A satire on American society, capitalism, and religious and sexual hypocrisy, Vonnegut’s ensemble includes n  Eliot Rosewatern (a less unfortunate Jay Gatsby/F. Scott Fitzgerald who lives long enough to be charitable with his family’s trust funds), his father n  Senator Lister Rosewatern (a male incarnation of Ayn Rand, whose "Atlas Shrugged" was published eight years before and "The Virtue of Selfishness" the year before this novel) and science fiction novelist n  Kilgore Troutn (who resembles Jesus Christ in appearance - until he shaves his beard off – and philosophy - n  "the problem is this: how to love people without any use"n and how to embrace "enthusiastic unselfishness").

Also featured en masse are the desperate "useless" poor ("the pearls") and the rapacious "useful" rich ("the swine").

Eliot believes, n  "There’s plenty for everybody in this country, if we’ll only share more."n Instead, the rich bully their way to the trough, so they can slurp more from the Money River, protesting: n  "What about incentive?"n Meanwhile they n  "pretend to be good always, so that even God will be fooled."n

In a preemptive reversal of "Infinite Jest", Eliot suffers a black out, then becomes a legendary tennis player. When complimented on his political platform, Kilgore Trout returns serve with n  "Thank you."n

It's up to us to determine whether this defines his gratitude or his platform.

Inspired, Eliot gives, in a way that can be regarded as either Christian or Socialist – to each according to their needs. Vonnegut, embarrassed by his allegory, disclaims, n  "All persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental, and should not be construed."n And so the construction must end here. Thank you.


SOUNDTRACK:

The Beatles - "Piggies"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXdKlp...