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Mother Night

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

4.20 · Rating details · 80,268 ratings · 3,260 reviews

Librarian note: Alternate cover edition for ISBN 0385334141 / 9780385334143.

Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of ...more

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Paperback, 268 pages

Published January 2006 by Dial Press (first published 1961)

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May 22, 2014 Kemper rated it it was amazing

Shelves: modern-lit, 2014-reread, favorites, war

The thing I love best about Kurt Vonnegut is that he was both the ultimate cynic and the ultimate humanist. What better character for him to create to embody those views than a Nazi with good intentions?

Howard W. Campbell Jr. was an American citizen who grew up in Germany and became a prominent Nazi thanks to his virulent anti-Semitic propaganda. However, Howard had actually been recruited before the war began to be an American spy who provided vital intelligence to the Allies via codes hidden i ...more

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Apr 24, 2016 Luca Ambrosino rated it liked it · review of another edition

English (Mother Night) / Italiano

Probably Vonnegut will never be one of my favourite writers. However, I must say that "Mother Night" is a good novel. Howard W. Campbell Junior is an American playwright emigrated to Germany of the Third Reich, become the symbol as well as the radio personality of Nazi propaganda. Campbell Junior brings us his memories from an Israeli jail, waiting to be tried for crimes against humanity.The tragicomic story that comes out gives us totally grotesque characters, m

...more

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Nov 20, 2008 Manny rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: strongly-recommended, too-sexy-for-maiden-aunts

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 understand why this book ...more

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Apr 04, 2017 BlackOxford rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american

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 Blac 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. ...more

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Feb 21, 2009 Amanda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club-made-me-do-it, kick-ass, blog

When most people think of Kurt Vonnegut, the novels Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle immediately come to mind. It's a shame that more people aren't familiar with Mother Night, a novel in which Vonnegut explores the nature of moral ambiguity and what high-minded ideals we sacrifice on the altar of war. It's a skillful blend of Vonnegut's trademark dark humor and philosophical musings about human morality as observed through the lens of war. To put it simply, this is some good stuff.

Sitting in When most people think of Kurt Vonnegut, the novels Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle immediately come to mind. It's a shame that more people aren't familiar with Mother Night, a novel in which Vonnegut explores the nature of moral ambiguity and what high-minded ideals we sacrifice on the altar of war. It's a skillful blend of Vonnegut's trademark dark humor and philosophical musings about human morality as observed through the lens of war. To put it simply, this is some good stuff.

Sitting in an Israeli jail and writing his memoirs, Howard Campbell awaits trial for war crimes as a Nazi in World War II. As Howard himself says, "I am an American by birth, a Nazi by reputation, and a nationless person by inclination" (1). And this is the root of Howard's problem: he has no true identity. As he ruminates on his past, we see how the apolitical Howard was drawn into events that eclipsed the simple life he longed to live as an artist writing plays for his muse and wife, the lovely Helga.

Howard's situation is a unique one. An American who moved to Germany as a child and seamlessly assimilated into German culture prior to any rumblings of war, Howard makes the perfect candidate for an American spy. However, to remain above suspicion, Howard must align himself with the Nazi cause by pretending to be a Nazi propagandist, eventually becoming the voice of the Reich through his radio broadcasts. Through a series of coughs, sneezes, and sniffs, Howard sends coded information out to the Americans at the same time he spews vile invective against the Jewish people.

So what's the problem? He was a good guy, right? That's how it would normally be perceived, but as Vonnegut cautions, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be" (v). Maintaining this dual identity weighs heavily upon Howard in the years after the war which robbed him of everything: his family, his friends, his art, and his Helga. Howard excelled as a propagandist--so good, in fact, his father-in-law tells him that Howard, not Hitler and not Goebbels, convinced him to become a Nazi. Howard's American handler even claims Campbell "was one of the most vicious sons of bitches who ever lived" (188). Knowing that it was his words and his voice that convinced so many to hate in the name of God is a guilt that Howard can never alleviate, especially given that his communications with the Americans never took the form of words. He never knew what information he was passing on to the Americans, nor what, if any, good came from it. In the end, he can never be certain if the good he did outweighed (or at least balanced out) the evil his words inspired in the hearts of men. The question is, do pure motivations absolve heinous outcomes? As Howard's past begins to catch up with him, he must confront these questions and try to determine who Howard Campbell has become in the shadow of war.

I think what is most intriguing about the novel is that Howard Campbell is the ultimate unreliable narrator. A man who is skilled with words and at shaping the perceptions of others, it's important to remember that, in this metafiction, it is Howard Campbell writing his own life's story. Even in the end we cannot be certain whether or not we come to know the real Howard Campbell as the resulting narrative may be Campbell's masterwork of propaganda--rewriting his own history with an eye to posterity. Howard Campbell may be a fiction created by the man himself, a constantly shifting personality recreating himself to fit the times in which he lives. After all, we become what we pretend to be.

Cross posted at This Insignificant Cinder ...more

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Jul 14, 2012 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: war, humor, united-states, fiction, literature, science, 20th-century

Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut

Mother Night is a novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut, first published in February 1962. The title of the book is taken from Goethe's Faust.

It is the fictional memoirs of Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American, who moved to Germany in 1923 at age 11, and later became a well-known playwright and Nazi propagandist. The action of the novel is narrated (through the use of metafiction) by Campbell himself.

The premise is that he is writing his memoirs while awaiting trial Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut

Mother Night is a novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut, first published in February 1962. The title of the book is taken from Goethe's Faust.

It is the fictional memoirs of Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American, who moved to Germany in 1923 at age 11, and later became a well-known playwright and Nazi propagandist. The action of the novel is narrated (through the use of metafiction) by Campbell himself.

The premise is that he is writing his memoirs while awaiting trial for war crimes in an Israeli prison. Howard W. Campbell also appears briefly in Vonnegut's later novel Slaughterhouse-Five.

تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و هشتم ماه دسامبر سال 2001میلادی

عنوان: شب مادر؛ نویسنده: کورت ونه گات جونیور؛ مترجم علی اصغر بهرامی؛ مشخصات نشر تهران، روشنگران و مطالعات زنان، 1380، در 240ص، شابک 9789645512987؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان امریکایی - سده 20م

داستان هاوارد کمپبل است که در پایان جنگ جهانی نخست به آلمان رفت و سپس به عنوان مبلغ نازی‌ها فعالیت کرد؛ این رمان از زبان خود کمپبل روایت شده‌ است؛ کمپبل پس از مهاجرت والدینش، بر خلاف میل آنها، در آلمان می‌ماند، و به نوشتن نمایشنامه ادامه می‌دهد؛ به دلیل اینکه از پدر و مادری آریایی به دنیا آمده‌ است، او را متعلق به حزب نازی می‌دانند؛ در عین حال به او پیشنهاد جاسوسی برای ارتش ایالات متحده می‌شود، و بعدها وی اطلاعات را به صورت رمز، از رادیو برای آمریکایی‌ها، می‌فرستد؛ همسر او در میانه ی جنگ، به شرق آلمان می‌رود، و به هاوارد خبر می‌رسد، که او احتمالاً در آنجا کشته شده‌ است؛ بعدها هاوارد توسط نیروی نظامی ایالات متحده دستگیر می‌شود، و با وساطت وارتنن، افسری که به او پیشنهاد جاسوسی کرده بود، آزاد و به آمریکا فرستاده می‌شود؛ مضمون اصلی «شب مادر» هویت است؛ هر یک از آدم‌های رمان، دو یا بیش از دو شخصیت دارند: اینان کدامیک از این دو شخصیت‌ هستند؟ یکی؟ هر دو؟ هیچ کدام؟ و با کدام ترازو؟ که پاسخ بدین پرسشها بازمی‌گردد به متن رمان و البته مقدمه ی ونه‌ گات؛
ا. شربیانی ...more

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Jul 20, 2011 Lyn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

In Stanley Kubrik's film, Full Metal Jacket, one of the most highlighted scenes is where the protagonist is asked to explain the peace symbol and "Born to Kill" slogan on his helmet. His response:“I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man.”

Cannot help but wonder if the writer for Full Metal Jacket had been thinking of Mother Night when he wrote that line. One of the darker novels in Vonnegut’s collection, but still with the humor and blithely irreverent tone that is his ...more

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Nov 11, 2019 J.L. Sutton rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

My favorite Kurt Vonnegut quote (“We are what we pretend to be…”) comes from Mother Night. A bit silly, but I think this was the reason I was reluctant to read Mother Night.

Image result for vonnegut we are what we pretend to be

Image result for vonnegut we are what we pretend to be

I liked the quote so well that I was somehow afraid that the novel would disappoint. From the outset I want to say Mother Night is fantastic! In Mother Night, it somehow seems like Howard W. Campbell Jr. is guilty of something, but what exactly? As an American working undercover as a propagandist for the Germans during WWII, ...more

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Feb 06, 2011 Jason rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, 2011, thrill-me-chill-me-fulfill-me, for-kindle

This is the best Vonnegut I’ve read so far. American Nazi Howard W. Campbell, Jr. is awaiting trial on war crimes. A traitor to the American people, Campbell is responsible for the deliberate spread of damaging propaganda throughout Germany and its occupied territories during World War II. He is an evil, dangerous man who is undoubtedly guilty of high treason.

Or is he?

As the account of Campbell’s life in Germany unfolds, much is revealed about his motives, the benign sequence of events leading t ...more

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Oct 12, 2020 Jenna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, classics

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 hatr ...more

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Nov 05, 2014 Ɗẳɳ 2.☊ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction

What the . . . surely this wasn’t penned by the legendary Kurt Vonnegut, right? I mean, where are the wacky sci-fi elements? The Tralfamadorians or the head-scratching, confusing time-shifting narrative? We aren’t seriously “stuck in time” the entire novel, are we? What about his colorful cast of eccentric weirdos? No Kilgore Trout, Dwayne Hoover, or Billy Pilgrim? Ah, but there were some oddballs, and I couldn’t help but notice a few references to Schenectady, New York. That’s rather curious, b What the . . . surely this wasn’t penned by the legendary Kurt Vonnegut, right? I mean, where are the wacky sci-fi elements? The Tralfamadorians or the head-scratching, confusing time-shifting narrative? We aren’t seriously “stuck in time” the entire novel, are we? What about his colorful cast of eccentric weirdos? No Kilgore Trout, Dwayne Hoover, or Billy Pilgrim? Ah, but there were some oddballs, and I couldn’t help but notice a few references to Schenectady, New York. That’s rather curious, but I’m still not entirely convinced.

However, I must say that, although it is surprising to see a fairly straightforward narrative from Mr. Vonnegut, this may be his most accessible novel, and thus a good jumping-off point for the uninitiated.

The narrator of Mother Night is a man named Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American awaiting trial in Israel for war crimes committed as a Nazi propagandist. Howard was born in American but moved to Berlin at a young age. He began his career as an author and playwright, eventually joining the Nazi party, in name only. He thinks of himself as an “American by birth, a Nazi by reputation, and a nationless person by inclination” because his only real loyalty is to his wife and their “Nation of Two.” As he rose through the party, his American roots led to him becoming the voice of the Nazi propaganda broadcasts aimed at converting Americans to the cause.

Howard claimed to have been recruited as an American spy, but there are no government officials that will confirm or deny his claim. And all attempts to track down his handler proved unsuccessful because the guy apparently used a fake name, and no one ever saw the two together. Throughout the story, he’s rescued from prosecution time and time again by his handler/“Blue Fairy Godmother.” So Howard asks, “Can I prove I was an American spy? My unbroken, lily-white neck is Exhibit A, and it’s the only exhibit I have.”

Even so, how could it possibly balance the scales with all the horrible atrocities his words helped fuel? And therein lies the moral of the story, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” That’s what weighs heavily on Howard’s soul, so, in the end, he chooses to stand trial—not so much for war crimes as for crimes against his own conscience.

While this started off as a solid three-star read, I thought the last quarter of the book was brilliant—the commentaries and philosophies were remarkable—bordering on poetic. The analogy of the totalitarian mind as a system of gears whose teeth have been filed off at random was particularly astute.

That said, this wasn’t my favorite Vonnegut—I have to admit did miss some of his trademark wackiness—but, even so, it was far better than most, and the ending alone pushed it to a five-star read for me. ...more

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Jan 06, 2018 Apatt rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: mainstream

“This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don’t think it’s a marvelous moral; I simply happen to know what it is: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

Before I started writing this review I quickly scanned other reviews of this book on Goodreads just to see if many of them start off with the above iconic quote. I did not find one so I went ahead with putting in the quote. Probably not that great an idea, that is why nobody want to do it! I ...more

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May 15, 2013 Madeleine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: head-in-the-clouds-nose-in-a-book, our-libeary, blogophilia, 2013

As much as I enjoyed reading Kurt Vonnegut expound upon Kurt Vonnegut in A Man Without a Country not that long ago, it didn't quite satisfy the craving I've had for his fiction. Sure, there is something to be said for watching a favorite author turn his fine-tuned gallows humor on himself and the society in which he both lives and has lived but sometimes I just want to be told a story, damnit.

Before launching into the novel proper, Vonnegut introduces Mother Night as the only story of his with As much as I enjoyed reading Kurt Vonnegut expound upon Kurt Vonnegut in A Man Without a Country not that long ago, it didn't quite satisfy the craving I've had for his fiction. Sure, there is something to be said for watching a favorite author turn his fine-tuned gallows humor on himself and the society in which he both lives and has lived but sometimes I just want to be told a story, damnit.

Before launching into the novel proper, Vonnegut introduces Mother Night as the only story of his with a moral he knows: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." He then spends 269 pages proving what a haunting, damning and dangerous moral it is, with enough self-awareness and dark jocularity to keep this tale -- the fictional memoirs of Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American-born German playwright who hides in plain sight as a propagandist for WWII-era Nazis while all too convincingly infiltrating their ranks to aid the American government that employs him as a spy -- from getting too distastefully morbid.

It is, at first glance, a moral that stands in direct, fundamental conflict with what I believe to be true. Nothing galls me quite like the lazy assumption that a thing goes no deeper than its surface, that what it looks like is what it is and nothing more. To look no further than appearances subscribes to a flagrant disregard for motivation, circumstances, and any one thing's or person's capacity for multidimensional existence and purpose. To ignore the fact that there is almost always something working in the hidden recesses of the unspoken and unseen realms is, to me, the ultimate display of egotism, a perilous assumption that the observer knows more about a situation in which he plays no part and can't be arsed to offer it the courtesy of deeper contemplation or understanding by way of delving beyond the easy veneer.

But because this is Vonnegut, a message that seems to be an idealogical slap in the face of my own personal philosophy is, at its core, a confirmation that I'm not wrong. (And, really, what's the point of reading literature if not to find validation at the hands of greater minds?) If the Faustian origin of this novel's title heralds the eventual hellward saunter of one's bargaining-chip soul, the tale following such an exchange (that is, safety from the Nazis within their ranks as they believe him to be their loyal, hate-spewing voice) shows exactly why the road paved with good intentions leads to where it does. This isn't fake-it-'til-you-make-it terrain: This is a disturbing account of why hiding one's true goodness beneath layers of protective and necessary deceit without leaving a breadcrumb trail for others to find the way back to your honest intentions will always backfire, often with tragic consequences.

The story's moral shapes every character in this tale. Starting with the hero himself, who has an entire world convinced that his broadcasts of deliberately ludicrous anti-Semitic vitriol are spoken in earnest rather than in code, he comes to find that everyone who holds a more-than-fleeting place in his life after he is secreted away to anonymous but tenuous safety in a New York City apartment is hiding their true identities, too. From his doctor neighbor who refuses to acknowledge that his childhood detoured through a concentration camp to the woman he believes (and who has deceived herself into believing) to be his long-presumed-dead wife, from the friend who is really a spy who obliterates Campbell's incognito existence to the white supremacist whose retinue includes a black man and a Catholic who would otherwise be his sworn enemies if he hadn't become selectively blind to their egregious differences by converting them to his cause, absolutely no one is who they really are by virtue of self-denial.

There is a love story desperately trying to proclaim itself as a last bastion of hope in Campbell's apathetic post-war existence. While his beloved wife and muse, Helga, the actress for whom he wrote some of his finest plays as vehicles to showcase the essence of the adored and adoring woman who comprises the other half of his Nation of Two, is declared dead, it is clear that a part of the widower died with her. I don't feel like I'm spoiling anything by revealing that the woman who later finds Campbell in New York and claims to be his Helga isn't for two reasons: One, the truth, which is foreshadowed quite obviously though adeptly, is revealed fairly quickly; and two, it illustrates how desperately Campbell wants his wife to be alive and, when that is proven to be impossible beyond all rational thought, he then desperately wants to pretend this woman is his wife, if not a more-than-adeqaute stand-in for one person who has ever given his life meaning.

The dangers of such doggedly perpetuated tunnel vision that thrives by casting off all ties to reality is a theme that drives home the novel's moral. Leave it to our humanist friend to sum up the problems of both this novel of his and the world at large: "Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile."

Campbell knew what he was doing all along. Along his journey to the Israeli jail cell from which he spins his autobiographical tale, he collides with those who have no reason to doubt that he's their brother in arms against the lesser races, a mouthpiece whose convictions are evident in the words he reveals only to three other men and his memoir's audience to be nothing more than caricature on the surface and cipher in their meaning: These run-ins with his in-appearance-only compatriots provide crushing proof that they have warped their own perspectives to allow for the atrocities they've committed while Campbell had his wits about him all along. Rather than making the former apologetic victims of circumstance and the latter a heinous, calculating monster, Vonnegut accomplishes quite the opposite.

Stylistically, subtlety and understatement are the driving forces of a narration that relies more on a preference for telling rather than showing, a cardinal sin that anyone who's ever enrolled in a even one creative-writing class should recognize immediately; however, as any writer worth his ink will tell you, such rules exist to be broken for those who can break them with aplomb. While Campbell does allow images to speak for themselves, he is writing a memoir that is filled with his own observations, thoughts, conclusions and dot-connecting. What makes his propensity for telling successful is his succinctness: He doesn't dwell on a moment until its emotional resonance has been beaten into even the densest of reader, which is so often the unfortunate result of not trusting the audience to draw its own conclusions and extrapolating the significance of a scene to maximize the devastating impact. It's an an effect that not only showcases Vonnegut's talent but also hints at Campbell's own prowess as a man of words.

Vonnegut may have showed his hand early in terms of the overriding moral of Mother Night, though he peppers his novel with less emphasized though equally important truths that make the human condition a flawed but beautiful thing. The dangers of hate -- "There are plenty of good reasons for fighting... but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It’s that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive" -- are all but impossible to address in a novel that traverses so deeply and unflinchingly into one of the darkest stains on humanity's historical conscience. But as I've stated (probably ad nauseam) in other reviews, one of my other dearest personal beliefs is that one extreme cannot exist without a contrasting opposite to offer a counterbalance, which is another truth Vonnegut seems to agree with by the equalizing, comforting force his message of love delivers in these same pages: "Make love when you can. It's good for you." ...more

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Nov 22, 2008 Jason Koivu rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favorites

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 duri ...more

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Apr 05, 2019 Brett C rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: dark-humor

For me this was a memorable and enjoyable story. It's a story of war and aftermath consequences. More importantly: everybody's pretending! A great black humored story written only the way Kurt Vonnegut could author. I have read several other works by KV and this is one of his better stories (in my opinion) .

The moral of the story: be careful of who you pretend to be, because you become what you pretend to be!

I recommend "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Mother Night" to anyone new to Kurt Vonnegut. " ...more

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Jun 13, 2013 Algernon (Darth Anyan) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013

Future civilizations - better civilizations than this one - are going to judge all men by the extent to which they've been artists. You and I, if some future archeologist finds our works miraculously preserved in some city dump, will be judged by the quality of our creations. Nothing else about us will matter.

Mother Night is one of the author's favorites, so according to the above quote extracted from the book, it is how he would want to be judged by posterity. I believe I read somewhere tha ...more

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Jun 09, 2015 Melki rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: humorous-fiction

"You are the only man I ever heard of," Mengel said to me this morning, "who has a bad conscience about what he did in the war. Everybody else, no matter what side he was on, no matter what he did, is sure a good man could not have acted in any other way."

Poor Howard Campbell, Jr., an American living in Germany, is recruited to spew on air Nazi propaganda that is laced with coded information for the Allies.

"You'll be volunteering right at the start of the war to be a dead man. Even if you live t ...more

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Mar 21, 2019 Gabrielle rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: american, own-a-copy, used-bookstore-finds, wwii, historical, reviewed, read-in-2019

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

Waiting to be tried for war crimes, Howard Campbell writes his memoirs in a jail cell in Jerusalem. American-born, but raised in Germany, Campbell was once a successful playwright, married to a beautiful actress named Helga. He had no particular political leaning, but the Ministry of Propaganda thought he’d be the perfect mouthpiece to promote the regime’s ideology through radio broadcasts. In order to protect hims "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

Waiting to be tried for war crimes, Howard Campbell writes his memoirs in a jail cell in Jerusalem. American-born, but raised in Germany, Campbell was once a successful playwright, married to a beautiful actress named Helga. He had no particular political leaning, but the Ministry of Propaganda thought he’d be the perfect mouthpiece to promote the regime’s ideology through radio broadcasts. In order to protect himself and his beloved wife, Campbell gave this job his all and became a golden boy of the Third Reich. But Campbell was also a spy for the Americans: through his broadcasts, he passed on coded messages to the Allies via coughs, verbal tics and other subtle signals. Years later, he is living in New York, seemingly forgotten by all, when his identity and past are suddenly brought to light, upending his reclusive existence.

Was he truly a Nazi propagandist? Or is he an American patriot whose work as double agent helped the Allies win the War? Which of these two jobs was he the best at? Is he a villain or a hero? Can he be both? Is anything he tells the reader in his memoirs even true?

As usual with Vonnegut’s work, I struggle to aptly summarize it: the narrative is non-linear and zany, exposing the still-raw wounds of the trauma of WWII, interjected with moments of deep insight, all the while making merciless fun of bigots and government agencies. His insane, white-supremacist dentist would be hilarious if he wasn’t an uncomfortably close portrait of some people who stir up hateful ideologies in the country next door (and who base their prejudices on equally nonsensical “evidence”). And as absurd as it might sound, why wouldn’t the American government deny ever having employed a man who very publicly promoted Nazi ideology? The Secret Services’ definition of patriotism has a history of being rather fluid, after all…

Obviously, moral ambiguity and identity are really the central theme of this lesser-known Vonnegut novel. And I say “lesser-known” with a certain amount of disbelief, because I found it to be much better than some of his more mainstreamed novels. I found his trademark blend of humanism and cynicism has never been sharper than it is here, and while I missed his weird aliens and kooky sci-fi writers, “Mother Night” is darker, but more memorable and haunting than a lot of his other books. Also, Howard and Helga’s “Nation of Two” story is probably the most romantic thing he has even penned.

Through Campbell, Vonnegut explores the idea that one must develop a certain kind of schizophrenia in order to be able to be an effective spy (or double agent, or whatever), that the thin line between the wrong thing and the right thing to do can be so strange that they might just drive you a little bit insane if you have any kind of self-awareness or conscience. But it’s not a situation limited to people who ended up in Campbell’s rather extreme situation: I think that most people must, to a degree, put on a daily act in order to get by and protect what they are truly loyal to. That might be what makes Campbell compelling despite being a rather sad and pathetic person: he is oddly relatable.

I really like Vonnegut because I often feel like we both walk a similar fine line of despairing at the state of the world and the behavior of humans, all the while believing we could really do better if we tried seriously, and that laughing at it is the only thing that kept him and keeps me from winding up in the loony bin. I also don’t think I have ever believed that anything is either black or white: to me, everything has always been a shade of grey – some things a murkier shade than others, certainly, but grey nonetheless. When I read a book like that, I feel a bit less alone is my ambiguously pessimistic/hopeful boat.

In our era of fake news and alternative facts, this inexplicably underrated book is not to be missed. You will chew on it for a while, even if it is a very fast read. Right up there with “Breakfast of Champions” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...) and “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). ...more

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Feb 18, 2018 Barry Pierce rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, read-in-2018

I've always considered Vonnegut to be one of my favourite writers but I keep forgetting to read his books.

Mother Night is quite a different novel from what you'd expect with Vonnegut. There is no mind-bending science fiction or metafictional madness. Instead we have the story of Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American accused of being a Nazi due to his radio broadcasts from Germany during the war. He was actually a US counter-spy leaking Nazi secrets to the US but that little caveat is not well-know ...more

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May 29, 2013 Mel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: readers/thinkers

Recommended to Mel by: sister

Shelves: top-picks

My sister, a librarian and crazy mad Vonnegut fan (when he passed away she actually wrote the eulogy for her town's local newspaper), said to me when she suggested this book, that Mother Night is probably Vonnegut's most underappreciated novel, while Vonnegut himself considered it one of his best. His other personal favorites?: Slaughterhouse 5, and Cat's Cradle. She is a librarian with a PhD, so I don't argue literature with her; and Vonnegut is her favorite. When a reader can claim A favorite My sister, a librarian and crazy mad Vonnegut fan (when he passed away she actually wrote the eulogy for her town's local newspaper), said to me when she suggested this book, that Mother Night is probably Vonnegut's most underappreciated novel, while Vonnegut himself considered it one of his best. His other personal favorites?: Slaughterhouse 5, and Cat's Cradle. She is a librarian with a PhD, so I don't argue literature with her; and Vonnegut is her favorite. When a reader can claim A favorite author, I know it's an almost holy connection. In fact, she hasn't seemed the same since he left this world, I think when he turned off the lights, he took a little of her spark with him. Having finally read this, I have to agree with my little sis, and say this is my second favorite Vonnegut book.

He backs into this read, starting the story with the moral: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." Howard Campbell proceeds to narrate his story from inside an Israeli jail cell, where he is about to be tried for war crimes, "I am an American by birth, a Nazi by reputation, and a nationless person by inclination." The book examines moral ambiguity, and in true Vonnegut style, provokes the reader to a powerful, and emotional indictment against the crimes of complacency, apathy, and omission. Even from the antagonist himself we get a sense of ambiguity as we question his reliability; so apathetic about his own integrity, does anything he says have validity. Towards the ending of his story, and possibly his life, I had the sense that Howard finally looked into himself, called out for answers, and realized he heard only empty echoes--the loneliness is painful and devastating.

Vonnegut's hallmark nonchalance appears, but as the sinister version of nonchalance - complacency, and his usual gallows humor seems to question whether it is too dark to allow any brevity. So what is there to enjoy in a story so bleak? The answer is in the very essence of Vonnegut's writing -- to feel yourself respond so strongly to the quiet evil you experience in this story -- it is hearing your own conscience speaking back to you, affirming your integrity, as Vonnegut intends. This may be his most contemplative book--it will definitely exercise your own morality, even leave you with a little cerebral after-burn. "All that is needed for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing"... *so it goes,* ...always.
*This is my first review for Goodreads. I reprinted what I wrote for Audible, and hope to join the community of excellent reviewers here on Goodreads.

...more

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Mar 08, 2016 Steven Godin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: america-canada, favourites, world-war-ll, fiction

Howard W. Campbell Jr, a name that will now live long in the memory, for while behind bars in an Israeli prison awaiting trial for crimes against humanity during the second world war he 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, and after the war is holed up in an apartment in New York. But with his name now recognized as a war criminal, and ...more

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Feb 28, 2017 Sam Quixote rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Opening in 1960, former Nazi Howard W. Campbell Jr. is sitting in a Jerusalem jail awaiting trial (a la Adolf Eichmann did in real life) for his part in the Third Reich’s crimes as a radio propagandist - except he was really an American double agent, sending coded messages to the Allies through his broadcasts. But is he a hero for working to defeat Hitler or damned for furthering the Nazis convictions against the Jews in the process?

Mother Night is the best Kurt Vonnegut novel I’ve read (though Opening in 1960, former Nazi Howard W. Campbell Jr. is sitting in a Jerusalem jail awaiting trial (a la Adolf Eichmann did in real life) for his part in the Third Reich’s crimes as a radio propagandist - except he was really an American double agent, sending coded messages to the Allies through his broadcasts. But is he a hero for working to defeat Hitler or damned for furthering the Nazis convictions against the Jews in the process?

Mother Night is the best Kurt Vonnegut novel I’ve read (though that’s not saying much as I’ve always thought he was overrated). I think that’s in part due to him not using stupid gimmicks like childish drawings (Breakfast of Champions) or hokey sci-fi elements (Slaughterhouse-Five); he’s telling a more-or-less straightforward and very interesting story and doing it really well too.

I liked reading Howard’s journey from famous playwright to secret agent in Nazi Germany to the dark and tense post-war years trying to live under the radar in New York. Also, the cast are a colourful bunch ranging from his artist neighbour (who’s also a secret Russian spy) to a demented racist dental publisher to the mysterious American who recruited him as an agent.

The only part of the novel that didn’t work for me was the nuanced depth Vonnegut attempts. Is Howard irredeemable because of his disguise as a Nazi propagandist or is it acceptable because he was really working for the Allies? For me the answer is clearly the latter, which is partly what makes him a likeable protagonist, but to Vonnegut Howard is guilty because “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

Are we what we pretend to be though – can we be what we are when we’re not pretending? What about Howard’s apoliticism, his only allegiance being to his beloved wife Helga, their “Nation of Two”, and his true vocation as a playwright? Does none of that truth count because of the mask Howard wore for a few years, especially considering that it was in service to a higher cause?

See, this is what’s always bothered me about Vonnegut: he’s too fucking cynical! Granted, Howard’s circumstances are complex and unique but Vonnegut always comes down on the negative side because he’s pessimistic, almost nihilistic, in his worldview. It’s a quality that makes him a compelling writer but it’s also quite limiting as his stories tend to always go in one direction - they become a little too predictable and repetitive in their overall themes. And the abrupt ending to this novel felt so pointless and uninspired.

While I appreciated the thoughtful moral dimensions, they weren’t that engaging and I enjoyed Mother Night the most for being an entertaining, well-written and briskly-paced story. I’d definitely recommend this to new Kurt Vonnegut readers over his more famous novels and to any Vonnegut fans who’ve not gotten around to this yet. ...more

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Nov 10, 2017 Meike rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-read, usa

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

Howard W. Campbell, Jr. is one of the most important propagandists of the Third Reich, and he is an American spy. While sending coded messages to the U.S. during WW II, he is also contributing to the German war machine. "Mother Night" is the memoir this fictional character writes in a Jerusalem prison, while awaiting trial for war crimes.

This is an equally dark and funny metafictional novel, full of clever ideas, puns, j "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."

Howard W. Campbell, Jr. is one of the most important propagandists of the Third Reich, and he is an American spy. While sending coded messages to the U.S. during WW II, he is also contributing to the German war machine. "Mother Night" is the memoir this fictional character writes in a Jerusalem prison, while awaiting trial for war crimes.

This is an equally dark and funny metafictional novel, full of clever ideas, puns, jokes, satire, and quirky twists - but as this is Vonnegut, there is a melancholy core at the heart of this text: Vonnegut's humor does not cover ugly truths about history and human nature, it highlights them.

The title "Mother Night" refers to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play Faust: First Part, the ultimate German literary text about the fight between good and evil. This is an interesting reference (and it seems like many English-speaking readers are unfamiliar with this play), so I'd like to elaborate on it a little:

The status of "Faust I" in the German literary canon could be compared to a piece like "Hamlet" in the English-speaking world - it is extremely well-known. Probably the most famous part is the first encounter between the protagonist, Dr. Heinrich Faust, and Mephisto, the devil. Faust asks him who he is, and Mephisto starts to talk about the nature of evil (this is absolutely fantastic, go read it). Here's an excerpt:

"I am a part of the part that at first was all,
part of the darkness that gave birth to light,
that supercilious light
which now disputes with Mother Night
her ancient rank and space
and yet can not succeed;
no matter how it struggles,
it sticks to matter and can't get free."

Faust clearly does not want to stick to matter anymore: He makes a pact with the devil, "So that I may perceive whatever holds / the world together in its inmost folds" - i.e., Faust wants to attain universal knowledge. Although Faust's goal is not evil per se, he trades off his moral standards, and his hubris will lead to terrible consequences. And what Faust doesn't know: God and the devil made a bet whether Faust will ultimately side with good or evil - so who will finally win the fight for the human soul?

Just as Goethe, Vonnegut lets the battle between good and evil take place within individual people, reminding the reader that "the Nazis" and "the allies" were not monolithic masses, but groups composed of individual people who made individual decisions - and Vonnegut comes up with rather relevatory decisons and reasonings! What makes his text so exciting is that he introduces an unreliable narrator who tries to be both good and evil and a cast of characters who bent the idea of good and evil in every possible direction, thus showing how people deceive themselves in order to conform to ideologies or to evade personal responsibility. Who will win the fight for their souls? And what will the consequences of Campbell's Faustian pact with the Nazis be?

Many thanks to fellow Goodreader Tim (the Swiss one, not the one residing in Faust's hometown of Leipzig ;-)) for recommending this book to me! ...more

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Dec 05, 2011 Kirstine rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1-men, favourites, own, reviewed, fiction

Before this, I'd never read anything by Kurt Vonnegut.

From this day forward, consider me a fan.

It's strange, really, how some books fall into your life at exactly the right time. I don't know how it happens. If we somehow unconsciously know that this is the book we need and pick it up and let it take us places. Perhaps. All I know is this particular book came into my life at the most opportune moment. I say opportune, because I just recently acquired the skills to really understand this book, ...more

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Jun 24, 2014 notgettingenough rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: humour, sociology, modern-lit

Heart-breakingly sad, utterly horrific; if funny, then savagely so. I can’t write about people writing about Nazis and WWII without feeling that I diminish the power of their work. If you read one thing about the period, this short novel would do just fine. I will leave it at that.

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Jun 21, 2007 Oriana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-for-work, read-2009, read-2011

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

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Jun 16, 2012 Brad rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Brad by: k.i. hope

Shelves: wwii-era-lit, about-guilt, imaginary-history, worth-reading-twice

It's been a long, long time since I read Mr. Vonnegut. I remember his satire being funny. I didn't laugh this time around. Maybe it was just me, but Mother Night was deadly serious.

Guilt. Not the state of being physically guilty of committing a negative action, a "crime" if you prefer, but the feeling of guilt that festers in one's soul for a lifetime. That's the guilt, that Raskalnikovian guilt, that interested me in Mother Night

I liked Howard J. Campbell Jr., Joseph Goebbels best radio propa ...more

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Nov 13, 2009 Szplug rated it liked it · review of another edition

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 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 spat venom he did not believe in that he convinced the world of his rabid support for a cause he was secretly fighting against.

Years later he is living a quiet and faceless existence in New York City, his service to his country never acknowledged, the damage of his words reverberating still. As is its wont, life decides to alter the tempo of the music of its pageant, and whilst this new dance steers Howard inexorably towards a date with the hangman, a parade of new and old faces enter and re-enter his life; love once more warmly kisses and then coldly bites; and certain old truths and beliefs are shown to have been lies and illusions all along.

My expectations for Mother Night were quite high, having read so many glowing reviews over the years. I feel like I should have loved it, whereas I could only muster up an appreciative like. I knew I wanted something further from the story and yet couldn't quite assemble a concrete grievance from my lingering dissatisfaction; perhaps it's that I didn't find Campbell a particularly compelling character, his story a bit too abstract to hold close; perhaps Vonnegut confounds through an ability to impart a relatively simple and straightforward prose with a humor and meaning that, compacted so efficiently, lends itself to to being underestimated, underappreciated. It will be interesting to see if Slaughterhouse-Five—whenever I finally give it its overdue due—will affect me in the same manner. In any case, Mother Night, like so many books, should benefit from a second reading down the road and a reappraisal made of its more mature charms. ...more

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Oct 12, 2016 Caro the Helmet Lady rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: madness, 2016-reads, classics, the-challenge-2016, historical-fiction, film-too

“We are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

Howard W. Campbell, Jr., the protagonist of the story, is a perfect example of someone who tried to do "as the Romans do" in Germany at the inhuman time of Third Reich and World War II and to get rid of his own conscience, yet got completely outplayed by it. It's absolutely impossible not to laugh at his attempts to please everyone and agree with everything his life brought upon him. At the same time his awareness o ...more

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Dec 26, 2011 MJ Nicholls rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: merkins, worshipped, novellas

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

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About Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

29,493 followers

Kurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.

He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journali ...more