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събота, 21 януари 2012 г. Кърт Вонегът >> Майка Нощ Американецът Хауърд У.Камбъл - младши, шпионин по времето на Втората световна война, сега е подсъдим в Израел като нацистки военнопрестъпник Наистина ли обаче е виновен? В тази брилянтна книга, изпълнена с истински черен хумор, Вонегът превръща черното и бялото в смразяващ кръвта оттенък на сивото с една присъда, която ще преследва всички ни. Издателство Прозорец Майка Нощ в Хеликон Майка Нощ в Books.bg Публикувано от RG® в 15:31 Етикети: Кърт Вонегът, Майка Нощ, Прозорец, Хеликон, Books.bg Абонамент за: Коментари за публикацията (Atom)
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Kurt Vonnegut Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut Mother Night is the first-person account of Harold W. Campbell, Jr., an American spy in World War II who has been so good at his job that he’s lost his own identity. Follow Campbell as he recounts the tangled web of his personal history as a writer, spy, Nazi propagandist, and more. Spies Make for Unreliable Narrators I’ve encountered passages from many Kurt Vonnegut books over the years, but Mother Night is the first book by Vonnegut that I’ve read in full. It’s Vonnegut’s most favorably rated book on Goodreads, so it seemed like a good place to start. However, in hindsight, and given my general dislike of World War II fiction, I probably should have stuck with Slaughterhouse Five. As much as I sometimes enjoyed Vonnegut’s ideas and famed dark humor, I was unable to grow attached to Mother Night‘s story or characters. The story starts off by employing metafiction. Vonnegut describes himself as the editor, not the writer, of the novel’s first-person account. It’s mildly interesting, but this ultimately has little to no impact for the reader. Adding another layer to the onion doesn’t change the fact that you’ve got an onion. Once you get past the intro, you meet Howard W. Campbell, Jr., the book’s first-person narrator. Campbell is awaiting trial in an Israeli prison for war crimes, specifically his involvement with Nazi Germany’s propaganda during World War II. While in prison, Campbell writes the story of his life, which is what you read in Mother Night. It’s the story of a man who has done both normal and questionable things. Throughout, Campbell claims he is an American spy who was embedded in the heart of the Nazi movement for a confusing mix of reasons. But is Campbell always telling the truth in his autobiography? “How could I ever trust a man who’s been as good a spy as you have?” said Wirtanen. “Hmm?” Can a man like Campbell even believe himself? We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. Uncertainty is one of Mother Night‘s core elements. Is Campbell being truthful? Is Campbell good or evil? Can good or evil be defined at all—if so, how, to what extent, and by whom? In Campbell’s case, does truth matter if it’s not a truth everyone else believes? As a fan of unreliable narration, I enjoyed Vonnegut’s exploration of these questions through Campbell. However, for me, there is something missing from Mother Night. These questions are intriguing, but they have no depth on their own. They must be asked and answered through characters you love (or hate), characters that make you feel something. Unfortunately, Howard W. Campbell’s narration is dry, at best, and the supporting cast, though sometimes well-described, never seem that meaningful. Considering Nazi death camps get a few mentions, I feel like I should have had a more visceral response to something in this book. Perhaps it’s my own dislike for certain parts of Mother Night—the subject matter, the appearance of pointless metafiction—but, after a while, I found I didn’t quite care if Campbell was being honest or not. I didn’t care if he lived or died. I didn’t care if his various romances worked out because they were boring—or, worse, melodramatic—loves. I didn’t care about those who hated him because they didn’t matter. For me, Mother Night is one of those books where I realize the ideas and messages have value, but find they are ruined for me because the characters never take hold of my emotions. Kurt Vonnegut’s famous saying from Slaughterhouse Five, which also makes an appearance in Mother Night, is “So it goes.” It’s a salty way of expressing the inevitable nature of things, usually death. C’est la vie. I think Mother Night can be boiled down to a couple of words, too: So what? Buy Mother Night from Amazon or iTunes Follow Kurt Vonnegut on Facebook Quotes from Mother Night “You hate America, don’t you?” “That would be as silly as loving it,” I said. “It’s impossible for me to get emotional about it, because real estate doesn’t interest me…” Most things in this world don’t work, but aspirin do. His mother understood my illness immediately, that it was my world rather than myself that was diseased.