It is rare that I consider a book unimpeachable--that also has the dubious horror of being anointed as a sacred cow or a platitude in the making. But there is a reason that Vonnegut's work is acknowledged as ageless and incomparable. He really is just that. MOTHER NIGHT is his third book, written in 1961, and the first book written in the first person, which allows the reader to descend deeper and deeper into the protagonist's mind. Vonnegut's past history of surviving the 1945 bombing of Dresden while underground in an abattoir has provided a lot of meat for several of his novels, and this one is a riveting example. This isn't one of Vonnegut's shaggy dog or science fiction stories. It has more of a reality-based feel to it. Every sentence is necessary and carefully wrought. His satire is on full display, but love and humanity are intertwined. His ability to embrace the skeptic with the sentimentalist seems effortless.

The primary theme is penned in Vonnegut's introduction, written five years after the hardback was released.

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

After the editor's note written by the (fictional) editor of this confessional story, we are introduced to Howard W. Campbell, Jr., the protagonist and narrator of his story as an American spy and former playwright and poet living in Germany during WW II. He is imprisoned in Israel for war crimes of treason and crimes against humanity; he was so good at his job that no one presently believes his patriotism and service to America. Campbell gave impassioned radio broadcasts, delivering prolific anti-Semitic messages to all of Nazi Germany. His "code" to the Americans was conveyed in mannerisms, emphases, coughs, and verbal stumbles. He became a minor celebrity to the Nazis.

He loved and adored his German wife, Helga; together they were a "nation of two." As a playwright, he understood "lies told for the sake of artistic effect" and that lies, in art, can be "the most beguiling forms of truth." He never told Helga that he was a spy. He was separated from her, and she was presumed dead, and he later emerged in Greenwich Village to attempt to live in anonymity, although he kept his name. Helga--or someone like Helga--re-emerged, also. And a variety of white supremacists found him and wanted to herald him and protect him from harm. Only Vonnegut can combine slapstick with white supremacy and hold your heart in his teeth.

This book had me in thrall from the first to last page. I paced periodically while reading--re-reading sentences, phrases, paragraphs. I was captivated by Vonnegut's ability to turn every truth upside down and every lie inside out. The revelations of truth were in every contradiction and the fullness of humanity in every insanity and evil act. This book will make you question what is right and what is true about the things we think we believe and believe in.

Vonnegut was a prescient writer in his day, and his work is still ahead of its time.

Whilst Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle are far and away Vonnegut's most popular novels along with probably being the most discussed, Mother Night goes somewhat under the radar. This novel has a higher average rating - currently 4.21 - on here that all his other books. And you know what, I'm not surprised. This is my first venture into Vonnegut's literary world so didn't really know what to expect, and ended up being completely blown away. Howard W. Campbell Jr is name that will stay with me for a very long time.

In a nutshell Campbell Jr, while behind bars in an Israeli prison awaiting trial for crimes against humanity during the second world war, sets out his memoirs. And so unfolds a remarkable story. Living in Berlin with his German wife he writes and spreads Nazi propaganda over the airwaves all the while being a spy for the U.S military. After the war is then holed up in an apartment in New York, but with his name now recognized as a war criminal. With many allies at his side - some who have such great names they would fit nicely into a spoof movie! - just who can he trust?

Mother Night held me in a vice-like grip right up to its final chilling words. I spend the rest of the evening, and the following days, with it at the forefront of my mind. I don't say that often about a novel. Some even really good ones are forgotten about within a matter of hours. Using his own experiences of the war, Kurt Vonnegut brings to light such issues of sanity, guilt, identity, and love.

This darkly comic satire is the sort of novel that would now make me want to read all of his others.

5/5. A masterpiece.

Spotting Fake News

Fake news did not arise with Donald Trump’s tweets. Propagandists of the Left and the Right have used it since before there was a Left and Right. America has always had a fascist edge. 19th century Nativists, Know-Nothings, Klansmen, Red Shirts, White Leaguers, and Constitutional Unionists invented fake news long before the John Birch Society, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs or the alt-Right of Steve Bannon claimed that mass media routinely hide the truth about immigrants, Jews, and Blacks. Fake news has been an American tradition since the first Federalists attacked Thomas Jefferson as a dupe of French radical revolutionaries.
 
Vonnegut's Mother Night is about fake news from the inside, and what it does to the insides of the man on the inside. Howard J. Campbell, a writer born in America, wrangles himself a job as chief copy-writer for Joseph Goebbels's Nazi Propaganda machine. His American-grown copy about the inhumanity of Jews impresses his boss because it goes beyond even what Nazi ideology had to say about Jewish perfidy. He is promoted to the position of lead radio-broadcaster of the Reich, and therefore tagged as a war criminal after the war, wanted by the Israelis.

But Campbell is a double agent, recruited by the Americans to relay secret messages hidden in his propaganda broadcasts. So, he is protected after the war but not acknowledged for diplomatic reasons. Returned to the United States, Campbell lives for fifteen years an open but shabby life in New York City on a private soldier's salary. Outed by a Soviet agent, he is targeted not just by the Israelis, but also by old soldiers who can't understand what they fought and suffered for but believe that Campbell is the cause of their distress.

Campbell realises that his participation in the creation of fake news requires a certain form of schizophrenia. Therefore, he recognises somewhat too late, one must be very careful about what one pretends to be. He equates his condition to the defective mechanism of the "cuckoo clock from hell". The clock occasionally tells the truth, but only unpredictably as its gears with missing cogs speed up or stop the works. 

This mechanical analogy, Campbell says, refers to a mental illness, one which is passed from generation to generation. He's right of course. The fascist tendency is a familial and widespread cultural tradition which has power because it has persisted at least as long as the American republic. There aren't just precedents, there are statutory requirements to support the idea of the conspiracy of the world against the American Way: The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Jim Crow laws of the American South, the Espionage and Sedition Acts of 1918. 

It seems like the prototype of every American right wing populist lunatic from Huey Long to Father Coughlin finds his place somewhere in Mother Night. Groups like The Iron Guard of the White Sons of the Constitution and Moral Rearmament would be ludicrous if they didn't exist. But they do exist at precisely the nexus of religion and right wing ideology, with a little help from the Russians, that Vonnegut foresaw over a half-century ago. Today, these groups, as well as the Russians, seem to be in the ascendancy in the United States from the North Carolina Tea Party to the Neo-Nazi Montanans, and not forgetting the Republican Party.
 
Campbell finds a kind of salvation in his own disillusionment. One can only hope for similar personal revelations to the mass of Americans who have fallen for the latest version of fake news. But this seems unlikely to Campbell, who notes that:

"The dismaying thing about the totalitarian mind is that any given gear, though mutilated, will have at its circumference unbroken sequences of teeth that are immaculately maintained, that are exquisitely machined."

Check out Trump next time he smiles.

As the story opens, Howard W. Campbell, Jr. is sitting in an Israeli prison cell, writing his memoir, and awaiting trial for being a Nazi propaganda broadcaster during WWII. He is an American who lived in Germany with his German actress-wife prior to the war. He narrates his life as a playwright before the war and a propogandist during the war. A major complicating factor is that, according to his memoir, he was also recruited by the Americans as a spy and used his broadcasts to send coded messages without knowing what they meant. His reward for spying was an escape to New York City. Of course, this is what he says and there is no way for him to prove it is true.

This is a thought-provoking novel about moral ambiguity and how easy it is to go with the flow rather than taking a stand. Campbell is a stand-in for those who take the path of least resistance. Many people in this book are pretending to be something they are not. It is about living with cognitive dissonance, thinking of oneself as a good person yet perpetuating evil or as “just following orders.” The downside is that others will believe the pretense and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to undo the damage.

It calls attention to the evil perpetuated by hate and the process by which people can become followers of extremist views. It examines ethics in a cynical and irreverent manner, as is typical of Vonnegut. There are good reasons to remember what happened in WWII. Published in 1961, this book retains its relevance in today’s world.

“I had hoped, as a broadcaster, to be merely ludicrous, but this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate. So many people wanted to believe me!”

My first Vonnegut, and I loved it. Both comic and tragic; playfully scornful; smartly sardonic; intelligent; creative; irreverent.

The story is told in the form of a memoir. Howard W. Campbell Jr. is looking back on his life from prison where he awaits trial as a Nazi war criminal. Campbell, an American who lived in Germany since he was a boy, was a writer who became an American spy during the war, and proved talented in making up Nazi propaganda.

I loved how this story looked at morality and beliefs, and what it had to say about art and pretending.

I was also impressed by the depth of each of the minor characters, from Campbell’s recruiter Frank Wirtanen to his friend George Kraft the painter/Russian spy, to his neighbor Dr. Epstein’s mother who’d been in Auschwitz. Some only made a brief appearance but they’re all memorable.

Has this type of humor gone out of style? I rarely come across it anymore out in the world. People seem so earnest and careful. This was a breath of fresh air to me, and reminded me of my brother (a Vonnegut fan) and the brand of humor I recall over-hearing from him and his friends, people who were usually creative in some way, very smart, inwardly but not outwardly serious, daring but not at all mean-spirited. Perhaps Vonnegut was right that this is a hard world to be ludicrous in.

“Oh, God--the lives people try to lead. Oh God--what a world they try to lead them in!”

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." One of Vonnegut’s most famous quotes references our protagonist - Howard W. Campbell, Jr - who briefly appears in Slaughterhouse-Five. Nazi propagandist/American spy and one half of a "Nation of Two,” this is his story. Vonnegut’s dark humor at its finest.

I'm going to make an unpopular statement right now: This is the best of Kurt Vonnegut's novels. Okay Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five fans, fling your dung at me, I understand.

The characters, setting, plot, all of it comes together in a well-wrapped tale in which a man fights the truth of his own identity under the pressing weight of the author's imposed moral law that states you are what you pretend to be. In Mother Night, the story of an American spy working undercover within Germany during WWII as a Nazi propagandist, Vonnegut intentionally portrays his main character with so much ambivalence that by the end you're not sure whether to root for or against him.

Vonnegut's oft used theme, the struggle within, is at its strongest here where the main character is pitted against a real monster of an antagonist: the preponderance of evidence against himself. In other Vonnegut books I understand and sympathized with the self doubt his characters felt, but in some cases their struggles felt light to me. I should add that I read most of the author's works when I was a fresh-faced twenty year old with few cares in the world, so I don't think I understood his subject matter, that of the life-wearied, often middle-aged person whose accumulated weight of stress, daily concerns and self doubt brought on by crises endured through a life rife with experiences with horror, love, hate and, worst of all, ennui. So perhaps one day, maybe when I turn 50, I will reread Player Piano and it will rocket from my least favorite to most favorite of all of Kurt Vonnegut's wonderful novels, but for right now Mother Night stays there.

Mother Night is perhaps one of the most incredible, thought provoking and haunting books discussing human morality and perspective that I have ever had the honor of reading. This isn’t a review; rather it’s a diatribe about a book that literally knocked me off my chair with its brilliance. Mother Night is uncomfortable. It pushes the boundaries of perspective and forces us to ask questions that many would prefer not to ask. However, in the end it’s well worth it. Mother Night is a book that will stick to you for days, if not weeks after and will change the way you look at the world, and the people in it.

Read my full review here:

http://bookwormbluesjr.blogspot.com/2...

Mi primera inmersión en el mundo Vonnegut es Madre Noche. Una novela muy interesante, por momentos cómica, por momentos una suerte de reflexión.

Cuenta la historia de Howard Campbell, quien se describe como "estadounidense de nacimiento, nazi por reputación y apátrida por vocación". Es una descripción bien precisa; un día, nuestro protagonista será convocado a convertirse en espía de su país, pero ejerciendo como agente de propaganda alemán. Su trabajo será transmitir emisiones radiofónicas, en las que, por un lado, irá a favor del nazismo, mientras que por el otro lado, a partir de distintos códigos brindará esencial información a los Aliados. Entonces, su propuesta es, a través de sus cualidades como escritor y dramaturgo, contar su historia, y cómo llegó al lugar en el que está ahora: una cárcel en Jerusalén.

La novela no es estrictamente una crónica ni una descripción total de lo que ocurría durante el período nazi, ni lo que sufrían los judíos en los campos de concentración. Madre Noche se basa más en narrar la vida del protagonista, algo lógico si tenemos en cuenta su naturaleza de autobiografía. ¿Intenta Campbell arrepentirse? ¿Es su objetivo generar compasión, o intentar justificarse? No lo creo. En ningún momento de su narración se siente culpable por los crímenes que generó o por las cosas que decía en sus transmisiones. Tampoco se para en una posición clara; no está ni a favor ni en contra del nazismo. Sin embargo, fue él quien aceptó ser agente propagandístico y acatar las órdenes de sus superiores. Por esto y otras tantas cuestiones, este personaje me pareció muy atractivo para leer, para conocer sus ideales y su forma de pensar. Las novelas sobre la Segunda Guerra Mundial están generalmente narradas desde el punto de vista de los judíos o de alguien que haya sido víctima de lo que allí se cometió; por el contrario, la novela de Vonnegut se para en la vereda opuesta y muestra qué siente o qué opina sobre esto una persona que directamente influyó en los crímenes que se sucedieron en ese período.

Me gustó mucho también la manera en la que está construida la novela, sobre todo porque no sigue una estricta línea cronológica sino que está regida por constantes saltos temporales. En un principio, esto puede resultar un poco confuso, pero con el correr de la lectura el lector se va acostumbrando a esta forma de presentar la historia. Es un método bastante enriquecedor para el que lee desde el punto de vista de que se pueden entender los hechos de una manera más amplia. Como la narración no es fácticamente progresiva, uno lee un hecho y no sabe bien por qué pasó hasta que luego lo comprende con el avance de la lectura. Además de ser más cautivante que una narración lineal, le agrega a la historia esa sensación de querer seguir leyendo para averiguar todos los porqués. Por ejemplo, la novela empieza y termina con el protagonista en la cárcel, pero uno, al inicio, aunque puede llegar a imaginarse por qué está allí, no está totalmente seguro de ello hasta que lee el final.

A pesar de nunca haber leído a Vonnegut, sabía que tenía un estilo bastante marcado y especial. En Madre Noche el lector puede darse cuenta de esto con relativa facilidad. Lo que más me gustó del autor fue la manera en la que encadena los diálogos, cómo cada uno de ellos está planteado. Es difícil explicar por qué, ya que lo cierto es que son conversaciones relativamente normales, pero la forma en la que cada personaje responde y aviva la charla me pareció genial. Por otro lado, también me di cuenta de que para leer esta novela (y calculo que los demás libros del autor también) hay que presar atención, más que nada para no perderse con los cambios temporales y disfrutar al máximo de lo que la historia puede dar.

Es también muy curioso cómo una novela sobre un período tan oscuro logra apartarnos de esa sensación. Porque es así, esta novela muchas veces genera risa. Porque hay situaciones disparatadas, ridículas, que son las que generan humor. Y, más allá de eso, se puede llegar a leer entre líneas una crítica, con grandísimas dosis de humor negro, sátira y acidez. Muy probablemente, si la novela no estuviera cargada con estos factores la acabaríamos con una sensación casi triste, un tanto depresiva. Sin embargo, el autor logra que reflexionemos sobre nosotros mismos, sobre el ser humano en sí a partir de situaciones que generan risa, que logran que Madre Noche se transforme en una novela sumamente amena y entretenida.

Dice Vonnegut que esta es la única novela cuya moraleja conoce: esta es que somos lo que fingimos ser. Y eso es, precisamente, lo que demuestra el protagonista. Para cumplir su trabajo correctamente, debe fingir ser un despiadado nazi, sin miramientos a la hora de transmitir todas esas atrocidades por las emisiones radiales. Entonces, ¿podría una persona no nazi decir tales cosas? ¿Podría una persona no nazi no sentir culpa por lo que solía hacer? Una novela que habla de lo que fingimos ser y de lo que somos; que de alguna manera, como dice Vonnegut, vendría a ser prácticamente lo mismo.

"Dov'è il male? E' quella parte di ogni uomo che vuole odiare a tutti i costi, che vuole odiare e avere anche Dio dalla sua parte. E' quella parte di ogni uomo che trova tanto attraente qualsiasi genere di brutalità".

Questo libro sarebbe il perfetto accompagnamento a un libro di genere diverso, La banalità del male di Hannah Arendt. Entrambi, in modalità e forme differenti, affrontano il tema dei processi ai nazisti post seconda guerra mondiale, e il paragone, avendo letto il primo, ha accompagnato ininterrottamente la lettura del secondo.
Madre notte è il racconto romanzato, a mo' di finta autobiografia, di una ex spia americana che si è calata talmente tanto nella parte del nazista convinto, da esser ricercato per crimini contro l'umanità, raggirato dai vari servizi segreti nazionali e internazionali, e infine da cercare lui stesso una possibile espiazione.
Giocando con i toni del grottesco, parodiando i colori del thriller, Vonnegut disegna innanzitutto una grigia caricatura del potere, invertendo più e più volte i ruoli, nel suo interminabile gioco di specchi, tra paesi vinti e vincitori, buoni e cattivi, smascherandone la vera natura. Vonnegut si prende gioco del potere, e lo fa con un personaggio che, vittima di intrighi internazionali, su quegli stessi dinosauri burocratici e politici costruisce il suo personalissimo gioco.
Non mancano disquisizioni di natura filosofica e politica, soprattutto il ricorrente tema del male, che tanti parallelismi inevitabilmente suscita.
Romanzo apparentemente semplice, pure nella sua evidente stratificazione di senso, e che nasconde una costruzione criptica e ingegnosa, al punto che, voltata l'ultima pagina, non sei certo di averne afferrato del tutto il senso.

Possible spoilers below

n  

All I can say is that I didn't believe them, that I knew full well what ignorant, destructive, obscenely jocular things I was saying.

I always know when I tell a lie, am capable of imagining the cruel consequences of anybody's believing my lies, know cruelty is wrong.

I've always been able to live with what I did. How? Through that simple and widespread boon to modern mankind - schizophrenia.

n

Hmm, these are the narrator/protagonist's confessions and self-indictment as he is finally brought to account for his actions as a Nazi propagandist during WW2. He may not have deeply believed in Nazi ideology but he did more than simply propagate it: he helped to create its manifestations such as racist anti-Semitic cartoons that became widely used as target practices both during and after the war by right-wing extremists and white supremacist groups. He invented conspiracy theories about Jews and anyone non-white (a version of the 'great replacement' narrative) and broadcast them widely on behalf of the Nazi government. He disseminated hate and both supported and acted as mouthpiece for the fascist regime.

Does it matter, then, that he didn't believe in his own vile rhetoric? Does it matter that hidden somewhere in all this spite and fascist malevolence were coded messages to American forces? Not to me.

In fact, it seems to me that someone who knows perfectly well that what he is saying is a lie that is supporting, augmenting and legitimizing genocide is more culpable than an ill-educated and unthinking foot-soldier. I'm afraid I didn't see any ambiguities or advertised grey areas in this book.

It is interesting that this book is thinking about what we now call 'hate speech', something which many democracies (though not the US, I think?) and the UN have been trying to codify while maintaining free speech.

In the end, I found this book of its time (1960s) and it may well have been thoughtful then - today, it reads as disappointingly thin to me. Vonnegut's moral that if we pretend to be something, here a Nazi, then we become that thing isn't treated in a particularly sophisticated way, and the hectic energy of post-war white supremacists, the KKK and neo-Nazi movements may be satirical but also fell a bit flat.

The narrator tries to draw a dividing line between what he believes and what he did, but his actions killed his ability to be a playwright, a kind of obvious death of the soul or selling his soul to the devil (the title Mother Night comes from a quotation from Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust).

By the end, there is a resolution as Campbell decides to hang himself before coming to trial by a war crimes commission in Israel but I'm not sure he ever really acknowledges his guilt. He is and has been politically apathetic: he may not have believed in fascism but he doesn't struggle against it either and chooses to stay in Germany with his wife's fascist-supporting family happily rubbing shoulders with the likes of Eichmann and working for Goebbels.

I think I was expecting something more provocative but this seems far less ambivalent than I wanted. It's nowhere near the complex moralities and ambiguities posed in, say, John le Carré or writers like Nadine Gordimer or Doris Lessing.

I like books that show the world is not all good or all bad; it's not all black or all white. It's shades of grey. That is what Kurt Vonnegut does in Mother Night.

The book opens with our protagonist sitting in a jail cell in Israel, awaiting trial for his part in spreading Nazi propaganda during World War II.

We quickly learn that he was sending coded messages to the Allies on his radio program, and are now left questioning whether or not he is guilty of war crimes. Does his encouragement of hatred against the Jews make him guilty? Does his assistance to the Allies exonerate him?

As we get to know Howard W. Campbell, Jr., we see he doesn't go along with either side. He's floundering in the middle, perhaps because he never gave much consideration to what was going on or perhaps because he only cared about his own life and not that of anyone else's. I would say he is most guilty of apathy.

Was his apathy due to a character flaw or was it due to his feeling that things were out of his control and in order to save himself he had to not care about anyone else?

These are all questions the reader must decide for herself and I'm not sure I came to a concrete conclusion about Howard.

It's not my favourite Vonnegut book but I'm still glad I read it. Vonnegut succeeds in making us question what we think and demands we see all the layers of grey. He shows the evil some humans are capable of, and he shows how easy it is for the rest of us to turn a blind eye to suffering or even, worse, to see it as necessary.

If you don't care that children are torn from their parents and thrown into cages because it's not you or your children, or you don't care that people are suffering and dying from a virus because you personally haven't gotten sick, you are guilty of apathy. If you don't care what's done to people you consider to be "others", you will not speak out in their defense or do anything to help them. Maybe you don't personally hurt anyone, but with your silence you lend your support to their suffering.

Apathy allows us to look the other way, to stand silently by while others suffer. There are many reasons for this and we are good at deluding ourselves that it is the right thing to remain silent or even to encourage those who are hurting others. We are all guilty of apathy on some level. Perhaps it is impossible to live in a world with so much suffering and not dull our feelings of empathy towards others.

It is easy to rail against those who think it's OK to toss Latinx children into cages, but who among us lives their lives working only to minimize the suffering of others? Who among us is doing all they can to solve world hunger or take care of refugees? Who has completely devoted their time to ridding the world of structural racism? At some point, we all turn on our blinders. This is not good, and yet we all are guilty.

There are two morals of the story that I see:

1) We don't see the humanity of our fellow human beings when we see in absolute terms instead of layers of grey.

2) To be apathetic is to not think and to not care and when we allow ourselves to be apathetic, it doesn't really matter what our intentions are. The result is the same -- we do not alleviate the suffering of others and, worse, might even unintentionally cause more suffering.

Vonnegut reminds us to delve more deeply and forces us to question if good intentions are enough to absolve someone's actions. Our protagonist thought not. What will you decide?