Jason's review
Mother Night
by Kurt Vonnegut
Jason's review
Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut
Jason's review
rating:
We must be careful what we pretend to be, because in the end we are what we pretend to be. This is the moral of Vonnegut's darkest novel, the autobiography of Howard W. Campbell, Jr. an American ex-patriot who is a successful German-language playwright-turned-spy for the U.S. In order to serve his mission to the American side he has to serve the Nazis, and Vonnegut uses this paradoxical situation to explore human morality, as the reader deals with Campbell's post-war years living in exile in NYC. Was he a faithful American spy or a Nazi? In being a faithful American spy did he become a Nazi? Throw in a returned lover thought long-dead, the possibility that his neighbor is a Russian agent, and the fact that his other neighbors are survivors of Auschwitz, and Campbell is faced with some rather difficult life choices. This is the conondrum Vonnegut presents the reader in this novel. Incidentally, there was an excellent film version made of this book a few years back starring Nick N...more
