"Money is dehydrated utopia."

"I'm going to love these discarded Americans, even though they're useless and unattractive. That is going to be my work of art."

An enjoyable poke in the eye of America's hypocrisy riddled so-called upper crust and the system that created and sustains them.

I did not expect to love this book so much, but it really hit me pretty hard. I liked Sirens of Titan by Vonnegut just fine, it was fun, and I really liked Slaughterhouse-Five, but I didn't connect to it emotionally like I did God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Near the beginning of the book, there's a moment when Eliot Rosewater is thinking about Vonnegut's stand-in writer character, Kilgore Trout, who is Eliot's favorite author (see quote below, which also applies to sci-fi and fantasy writers in general) and he thinks that a sff author has never before written a book about money. Combined with, well, everything else in this book, it's clear that's what Vonnegut is doing with this book. It's first and foremost a book about how money and the pursuit or lack of it corrupts the human spirit.

The "plot" here, if we can call it that (not a complaint!) is that Eliot Rosewater is the heir to an American fortune and is currently in control of millions of dollars held by the Rosewater Foundation. But Eliot's approach to distributing the funds is not like those of his ancestors. Eliot sees his fortune as a burden, and spends all of this time either putting out fires with the Volunteer Fire Department, or answering calls on his little black phone, where the townspeople of Rosewater know they can call him at any hour and be treated to kindness and compassion, and perhaps a handwritten check. A lawyer working for the firm that handles the Foundation decides to try and prove that Eliot is insane, so that the running of the fortune will be turned over to his distant cousin, and the lawyer will profit by taking money from the transaction.

Eliot is such a great character. He cares so much. It's so poignant to watch Vonnegut write this character who has tried to see the suffering of those around him, and the only way he can do that is by blunting all of that feeling with alcohol. Eliot, like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five, is a WWII veteran, and his experience there has shaped him into the person he is today, someone with a reverence for life, who is burdened by the suffering he sees around him, and his part in that.

I'm making it sound sort of trite, but the experience of reading it is not that at all, with Vonnegut's black humor, that's undercut by a sorrow and a love for humanity as he wishes it could be. The absurdity he creates in his writing, and the words he uses just make me feel so many feelings, it's hard to put them into words.

I'm so glad I read this. New favorite.

“I love you sons of bitches. You’re all I read any more. You're the only ones who’ll talk all about the really terrific changes going on, the only ones crazy enough to know that life is a space voyage, and not a short one, either, but one that’ll last for billions of years. You’re the only ones with guts enough to really care about the future, who really notice what machines do to us, what wars do to us, what cities do to us, what big, simple ideas do to us, what tremendous misunderstanding, mistakes, accidents, catastrophes do to us. You're the only ones zany enough to agonize over time and distance without limit, over mysteries that will never die, over the fact that we are right now determining whether the space voyage for the next billion years or so is going to be Heaven or Hell.”

- - -

“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.”

- - -

“Tell me one good thing about those people Eliot helps.”

“I can’t.”

“I thought not.”

“It’s a secret thing,” she said, forced to argue, pleading for the argument to stop right there.

Without any notion of how merciless he was being, the Senator pressed on. “You’re among friends now—suppose you tell us what this great secret is.”

“The secret is that they’re human,” said Sylvia.”

- - -

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. 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.'”

[4.5 stars for some light dated elements (homophobia mostly), rounded up]

I have read six Kurt Vonnegut novels now and I think Cat's Cradle, Player Piano and this one, God Bless You, Mr Rosewater, are the best so far, with this one topping the list. Eliot Rosewater has inherited a load of money and doesn't feel he deserves such riches and lives with a nagging sense of guilt and a hatred of his privileged position in life, that he sees as more of a curse. He starts to drink a lot and wants to give large sums away and volunteers as a firefighter at one point, to further attempt to assuage his guilt of having too much and to 'give a little back' as the phrase goes...
The plot is quite basic really and gives plenty of room to the central question that is- If you don't have to work and spend your life preoccupied with making money, what do you do with your time and what is your purpose? That is the central problem for Eliot and is the thing that drives him to drink, as he struggles with a search for some substance and meaning in his life. There is a balance between gentle humour and soul searching in the novel which I thought worked well and the book had a poignancy about it and an undercurrent of sadness and quiet despair that gets under your skin as you reach the end...
For me, it was the only book I've read by him so far that I'd definitely want to read again, as I connected somewhat with that emptiness he had and that longing Eliot felt for something nameless and intangible, always just out of reach. I found it melancholic, thought provoking and unusual, but in a good way, and it has a strange, mysterious attraction, somehow hard to convey clearly...

I enjoyed reading this peculiar story. Kurt Vonnegut has such a unique approach to storytelling. His stories are infused with black humor, thought provoking themes, and a one-of-a-kind rhetoric.

I liked the main character Eliot Rosewater and his selfless endeavors. Throughout he provided much by acting as both financial and emotional support to total strangers. There is a lot to be said of someone like this.

The story dealt with humanity, mental illness/alcoholism, and conflicting greed/giving. Kurt Vonnegut even briefly exposes his World War II and Dresden experiences which are later revealed in full detail in his magnum opus 'Slaughterhouse Five'.

This book will have a special place for me and I will reread it most likely. I would recommend this one to any Kurt Vonnegut fan. Thanks!

"Corporations are people, my friend."
Mitt Romney, former Presidential hopeful and owner of a car elevator

The Rosewater Corporation was dedicated to prudence and profit, to balance sheets. Their main enterprise was the churning of stocks and bonds of other corporations. Their secret motto? Grab too much, or you'll get nothing at all.

They are also in charge of the capital of the charitable and cultural Rosewater Foundation.

Norman Mushari, a recent hire at a DC law firm (He had an enormous ass which was luminous when bare.), has begun plotting a violent overthrow of the Rosewater Foundation. How? By proving that the President of the Foundation, Eliot Rosewater, is a raving lunatic.

And so begins the tale...

Though Vonnegut's book was published in 1965, it seems almost prophetic when it describes the American class system.
Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling... 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.

If you're a member of the 1%, this book will only angry up your blood with its "socialist" messages, and you should probably stick with Ayn Rand.

However, Vonnegut manages to offer some of the best advice EVER for new human beings...and the rest of us, rich and poor, would do well to follow his lesson:

Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. 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."

La miglior scoperta di quest’anno: Kurt Vonnegut

Sigh. If only the story of a man with more money than God was more relevant in the world today. Oh wait--if only the story of a man with more money than God was less relevant in the world today. If only. This is the story about one such man, Eliot Rosewater, going insane (having a crisis of conscience?) Any lawyer would call it a misguided outburst of saintliness.

I hate these men in real life--whether of the orange or Martian doughboy variety--and yet somehow Kurt Vonnegut has managed to make Eliot Rosewater endearing. Unlike with many of his books this isn't the here's-the-protagonist's-life-story kind, and half of it is actually concerned with Eliot's have-not relation, Fred Rosewater.

The book flirts with the epistolary form, and sent me down a rabbit hole on the pronounciation of various New England place names (my favorite is Leominster, pronounced Lem-in-ster). I've said this before but I'll say it again--this is my new favorite Vonnegut. It has aged remarkably well--it might have been published yesterday--but how disgusting that Republican politicians are still whistling exactly the same tired tune.

Hilarious. Bonus: one can read it and laugh without the horrified guilt that hangs over the reading of Mother Night because it is only about the bad stuff we do to poor people and basically nice white people are all in agreement that it's okay to live better at the expense of poor people.

I would love to pull bits of this out to show you how funny it is. The scene where Eliot gives money to the poet so that the poet can tell the truth and the poet discovers he has no truth to tell. He only thought he did while he rationalised that poverty prevented him from doing so.

Rest here:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpres...

خداحفظتان کند آقای رزواتر
کورت ونه گات جونیور
محمد حسینی مقدم
نشر نیماژ
کورت ونه گات جونیور نویسنده محبوبی است .سلاخ خانه شماره پنج از اثار برتر تاریخ ادبیات است و اثار دیگرش همچون صبحانه قهرمانان ،گهواره گربه و شب مادر سالهاست که در بین خوانندگان جدی ادبیات ،از جایگاه ویژه ای برخوردارند.نگاه انتقادی ونه گات به سیاست های امریکا و همچنین جهان شمولی افکارش نیز دلیلی بر محبوبیت این نویسنده معاصرامریکایی است.
خدا حفظتان کند اقای رزواتر از اثار دوره نخست فعالیت ونه گات و به واقع اثری از دوران طلایی کار ادبی اوست .این کتاب که دقیقا قبل از دو شاهکار وی یعنی سلاخ خانه شماره پنج و صبحانه قهرمانان تالیف شده است .همچون اثار نامبرده به درونمایه انتقاد سیاسی و همچنین دغدغه های ونه گات در ارتباط با محیط زیست و اجتماع می پردازد .
الیوت رز واتر مردی است با افکاری عجیب که با وجود پدر ثروتمند و سناتورش،از اعضا یک باشگاه اتش نشانی است و شغلش کمک به مردم شهرش از هرطریق ،چه دلداری دادن و چه کمک مالی است.مشکل از روزی شروع میشود که وکیل کارکشته ای ادعا میکند که الیوت دیوانه است و بنابراین ثروت خانوادگی باید به عموزاده ای از تبار او برسد و کتاب این ماجرا را با لحنی کمیک دنبال میکند.شخصیت ثابت دیگر اثار ونه گات ،کیلگور ترات(که قهرمان رمان صبحانه قهرمانان است) در این اثر نیز نقش دارد و رزواتر همان رزواتری است که در صبحانه قهرمانان سبب ساز ان ماجراهای خنده دار گردید.
کتاب از نظر من بسیار بهتر می بود اگر پایان بندی شعاری و دم دستی انتهایش را نداشت.و همچنین اگر ونه گات سعی بیشتر در پروردن شخصیتها و وقایع داستانی انجام میداد . کتاب البته ابدا در سطح اثار مطرح دیگر ونه گات نیست.کتابی است که تنها یکبار به سرعت خوانده میشود و به همان سرعت نیز فراموش میشود .ترجمه کتاب بسیار روان و شیوا است .

"One of his favorite Kilgore Trout books dealt with ingratitude and nothing else. It was called The First District Court of Thankyou which was a court you could take people to, if you felt they hadn’t been properly grateful for something you had done.

If the defendant lost his case, the court gave him a choice between thanking the plaintiff in public, or going into solitary confinement on bread and water for a month.

According to Trout, 80% of those convicted chose the black hole."


I loved this Kurt Vonnegut book - not because it was a quick, engrossing read (his usually are but this wasn't), but because of the themes of selflessness vs. entitlement, seeing each other as humans on this earth all equally deserving of happiness and acceptance.

KV4eva

تصویر، کاملا، تصویری از آمریکاست. از ثروت‌های عجیب و غریب در چند سانتی‌متری فقرهای عجیب‌تر. اما یکی از رزواترها دلش به جای پول و ادامه دادن راهِ ثروت‌اندوزی که بعد از نسل‌ها، کار چندان سختی هم نیست، چیزهای دیگری می‌خواهد. اما قضیه مگر به همین سادگی‌ست؟ حتماً خلی چیزی شده. داستان، روایت‌های گوناگون از این دیوانگی‌ست.
شخصیت‌ها، تند و بی‌مهابا وارد می‌شوند. من کمی ترسیدم ولی شما نترسید؛ به اندازه‌ی کافی یادتان می‌مانند.

یادداشتی برای ناشر: انگار بالاجبار بدترین طراح جلد دنیا را دارید.

walking mp3

As wickedly funny as all nine Beehoven symphonies played backtoback at 78rpm.

Enjoyed this far more than I expected to.
:O)


Read By..........: Eric Michael Summerer
Total Duration...: 5 hours 13 minutes


blurb - Eliot Rosewater, a drunk volunteer fireman and president of the fabulously rich Rosewater Foundation, is about to attempt a noble experiment with human nature, with a little help from writer Kilgore Trout. The result is Kurt Vonnegut's funniest satire, an etched-in-acid portrayal of the greed, hypocrisy, and follies of the flesh we are all heir to.