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Dec 17, 2009

Dan rated it:

This is one of my favorite books. I picked this book up and read it through in one sitting. I couldn't put it down I was so engaged.

This book presents the moral dilemma of Howard W. Campbell Jr. an American who became a Nazi propagandist. However, he only became a Nazi propagandist because he was spying for the USA. Yet, he was a really good propagandist. His dilemma is this: Does the good of spying for America obviate and out weigh the evils he did by making propaganda for th More...

3 comments like (14 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Aaron rated it:

In a beautiful allegory of human duality, Vonnegut presents us with a character wavering on two worlds: pre-WWII and post-war; good and evil; certainty and ambiguity; past and present; life and death. As an American spy during the war, the main character is now faced with the ambivalence of whether he helped the Allies more than Germany, and if his civic responsibility was anything more than self-serving. Vonnegut delves deep into the psychological repercussions of ethical decisions, and society More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Jul 24, 2011

Chris rated it:

Right up front Kurt Vonnegut explains the moral of this short novel: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be. We then are shuffled rapidly through a cast of post-war men and women wearing masks, decked out to publicly play an adopted role, whilst concealing their true feelings and being underneath. The champion dissembler is Howard W. Campbell Jr., a former deep-cover American operative in the heart of Nazi Germany, who so brilliantly espoused propaganda and spa More...

2 comments like (6 people liked it)

Dec 01, 2007

Nyna rated it:

I have always enjoyed the way that Vonnegut sees the world, and his books, while written with well-formed characters and usually somewhat interesting plot-lines, have always struck me as 'idea' books. This book had a lot of ideas in it. They made me think, and usually I liked the way they directed my thoughts.

This is one of my favorite Vonnegut novels. It's something about how likable Campbell is, even at his very worst. About how the one thing he can say about himself with pride is More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Nov 22, 2008

Manny rated it:

Vastly underrated piece of black comedy, about a World War 2 double agent whose cover is a Nazi propagandist in the style of Lord Haw-Haw. Vonnegut says in the preface that this is the only one of his books where he knows what the moral is. You are what you pretend to be, so be careful about who you pretend to be. For my money, Vonnegut's second best book, running Cat's Cradle very close.

It's not just me - the great Doris Lessing also wrote once that she couldn't quite underst More...

6 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jul 07, 2007

Laila rated it:

Vonnegut is a breath of fresh air. I read him from time to time to balance the optimist/escapist in me. He's very dark, but always with a sense of humor. This book was an extremely fast read, and it had a lot of good things to say about how humans can fool themselves into believing that what they're doing is right.

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jan 25, 2009

Ben rated it:

One of my least favorite Vonnegut novels simply because it doesn't feel like Vonnegut. It has a different style to it and doesn't have the same dose of humor that makes his works so enjoyable. However, it seems that people that don't care much for Vonnegut really like this one.

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 13, 2011

Sarah rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 23, 2008

Liz rated it:

Wow.... wow. I am just not sure what to make of this book. As a jew who still cannot think hard about the holocaust without tearing up, part of me found this book offensive. But then the literary soul in me appreciates it for its twisted view. And I do appreciate that all in all, this book is a commentary about war and more specifically, about human nature as related to war.

I probably would never have picked up a book written from the point of view of a nazi (albeit an american spy- More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Oct 04, 2011

oriana rated it:

God, this book is so devastating. Vonnegut is so chameleonic, or something, how the lightness of his prose brilliantly belies the darkness of his themes, but oh my god, I can't even think how to express how sad this one made me. Everything is so sharply focused, every word is so perfectly, harrowingly placed. The loops and recursions and double-agents and plots within plots: all perfect. All awful. All honed for maximum pathos and horror without becoming maudlin or overdramatic. I feel punched i More...

11 comments like (10 people liked it)

Apr 14, 2008

Philip rated it:

in tight witty prose vonnegut relays the tale of a disenchanted american idealist and writer caught in the throws of WWII Nazi Germany who makes it safely through the war by "impersonating" a Nazi propogandist so succesfully as to rise to the top of the Nazi ranks and become loathed throughout the world all while believing nothing of what he says and serving secretly as an American spy. Is this man good? Evil? Merely human? Kurt knows. Let him tell you the rest. This book rocked. More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 27, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

Yet another weird story from one of our sultans of satire. I wanted to read this because the main character was briefly discussed in Slaughterhouse Five. When I finished the book today I realized I must have already read it at some point in the past. There were just too many things that sounded familiar. Oh, well, it only took a couple of days to read.

There is, of course, all kinds of satire and social commentary in the book, but Vonnegut tells you right up front what the "m More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 30, 2008

Molly rated it:

This early Vonnegut book begins with an introduction wherein Vonnegut claims that the story's moral is a warning that we are what we pretend to be. What follows is an editor's forward, signed by Vonnegut, which introduces the purported text of the confessions of Howard J. Campbell. Campbell was an American spy (although the American government cannot/will not confirm this) who as a German radio propagandist during WWII communicated secret messages to the American government. The text itself, More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Victor rated it:

The problem of identity is an old one in philosophy, and Vonnegut explores it here with outstanding mastery, while intertwining it with a slightly cynic reflection about WWII Nazi morality. To which degree are human beings defined by their thoughts and to which degree by their actions? If I die being a hero, but secretly hated those I saved, am I still a hero? If I die a villain, but secretly loved and worshiped the ones I killed, am I still a villain? What if I die full of doubts, who am I then More...

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Dec 28, 2011

Ted rated it:

This was really very good. I bought this book because it was on sale for $1 on my Kindle, and because I like and am intrigued by Vonnegut.

In many ways, this is the most normal Vonnegut book I've read. No time traveling. No line drawings of assholes. Very little self-awareness.

What's left is a compelling portrait of a man who is deeply conflicted, and whose narrative you're not sure you can believe, at least until the end.

There are two passage in particular that s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 26, 2011

MJ rated it:

As a deliberate contrast to Jonathan Littell’s 1000-page monster The Kindly Ones, I re-read this early Vonnegut masterpiece. The 1997 Robert B. Weide adaptation with Nick Nolte is one of my favourite movies, and where the novel is structured in typical nonlinear fashion, the movie embellishes and adds colour to the novel in its linear form. The two mediums compliment each other perfectly, so if you haven’t seen the film version, do it soon! And if you haven’t read this brilliant novella, the co More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2011

Robert rated it:

Kurt Vonnegut has been a strong source of respite for me the past few years. Whenever I feel too caught in with silly things in my silly life and need to unwind, I know I can find my cure between the covers of a Vonnegut novel. Mother Night makes seven in my family of his books and I read Cat's Cradle at least once a year. Perhaps it's because I'm a 22 year-old, bitter and cynical, and he just speaks to me, man, but there's a certain comfort I draw from my experiences with his work.

W More...

0 comments like

Sep 24, 2011

Mark rated it:

One of the things you will notice when you do get into Vonnegut- as you probably will love him or hate him- he loves to pull old characters back into focus and expand on them. In this book, the minor character of Howard Campbell Jr. from Slaughterhouse Five gets his own platform. Just as he would like it, the turncoat propagandist that he was! And for an unlikeable character KV makes no bones he does not like, never the less, it's obvious he highly enjoyed his place in the forum, making points o More...

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Sep 12, 2011

Ryandake rated it:

even not-the-best vonnegut books are still better than a rather large swath of everything else out there.

reading it (again) on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 though of course brings up some heavy-duty thoughts on propaganda. our hero, Howard W. Campbell Jr., is a propagandist for the nazis, a double-agent for the americans. the trouble is, he has no belief in the rightness of either cause. he just wants to keep living a happy romantic dream with his german wife, and being a propagandist More...

0 comments like

Jul 29, 2011

Michael G. rated it:

Okay...it's official...I am now a Vonnegut fan. My first comment has to be that had I read this book first, I would have been better equipped to appreciate 'Slaughterhouse-Five' Perhaps someone should compile a list of Vonnegut books in a "to be read" order that is not chronological, but based on how he shares his insight.

I'm not yet sure if he writes from personal experience, or as most great writers can collect his thoughts from sources outside himself, then translate t More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 23, 2011

Luke rated it:

Kurt Vonnegut has proven to be one of my favorite authors over the last few weeks. I picked up Slaughterhouse Five, not really expecting much of anything other than an anti-war book, and boy, was I wrong. Not only did Vonnegut introduce some really interesting Sci-fi concepts in that book, but he really blows you away with some of the greatest black humor out there. But this review isn't about Slaughterhouse, it's about one of Vonnegut's very few books that has no Science-fiction elements in More...

0 comments like

Feb 22, 2011

switterbug (Betsey) rated it:

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 Dresde More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 15, 2010

Maira rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Oct 22, 2010

Jeff rated it:

What attracts me to Vonnegut is the austere plainness in sincerity he crafts to instigate his higher morals. They may be redundant, his morals, but they are perhaps so redundant that they act as applicable sources--strength in numbers, if you will--to validate and justify his purposes.

Mother Night is a plot driven, almost detective-y novel with twists and turns, espionage, love triangles, and the common Vonnegutese humor that keeps his readers coming back but often has them confused More...

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Aug 19, 2010

Matt rated it:

If you are looking for Kurt Vonnegut the comedy writer, then "Mother Night" would probably strike you as confusing. There are a few chuckles to be had, and some amusement at the pitch-black nature of the situations, but this really isn't a comedy.

If you are looking for Kurt Vonnegut the great American novelist, you will appreciate "Mother Night." I have read most of Vonnegut's works, and this might be my favorite story of them all. I have enjoyed others more for th More...

0 comments like

Jan 20, 2010

Jennifer rated it:

Authors have long had a great flaw in portraing good and evil in humans. The characters portrayed in art almost always seem to be either good or evil. Vonnegut, one of the best observers of human nature manages in this book to portray we humans as we really are, a composite of many things.

Our hero, Howard, is a American spy in Germany during WWII. A profession that would be the most noble and great characters in anything but a Vonnegut work. Here he faces a dilemma, his cover is that More...

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Jan 17, 2010

Santi rated it:

[Quoted from this book:]

One of the Jews who guards me here knows nothing about that war. He is not interested. His name is Arnold Marx. He has very red hair. He is only eighteen, which means Arnold was three when Hitler died, and nonexistent when my career as a war criminal began.

He guards me from six in the morning until noon.

Arnold was born in Israel, He has never been outside of Israel.

His mother and father left Germany in the early thirtie More...

1 comment like

Nov 02, 2009

Sam rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Sep 24, 2009

Prongs rated it:

Howard Campbell is a man of many faces. By reputation, Howard Campbell is a Nazi ... but not just that, he is the voice of hope and moral justification to a Holocaust Germany. To a very select number of Americans, Campbell is an undercover spy, and one of the greatest American heroes of the war. To Howard Campbell, he is a simply an artist who cares nothing of politics and war, outside of the boundaries of the love he has for his wife and his writing. He merely lives his life from day to day, sp More...

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Jun 23, 2009

Sal rated it:

As I clicked the 5 star rating for this book, I realized, in looking back at most of the books that I've reviewed recently, that most of my reviews over the past few months have been 4 and 5 stars. I would like to take this opportunity to state unequivocally that I am NOT a book whore. I am actually a very picky reader, and almost always will either read a book based on a recommendation from someone I respect, or will thoroughly research the book & author before making the decision to commit m More...

1 comment like