11. Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut

Meh. Once again Vonnegut fails to appeal.

Mother Night is the supposed tale of an American who worked for Germany during WWII, but had a double life of sorts as a spy. He was an English language broadcaster who was passing information out to the allies as part of his show. But what he did and said on his show was really awful. Supposedly this is supposed to make the reader think.

I found the presentation boring, and the lack of humor - supposedly one of Vonnegut's strengths - a real problem. That said, it wasn't bad, really, but it barely held my attention and didn't stick with me.

A blurb on the back cover says Mother Night is "in the Catch-22 vein." Had I known that in advance I wouldn't have wasted my time. I really didn't like Catch-22. Oh well.

Other than Cat's Cradle, though, it appears I am just not cut out for reading Vonnegut. I have one more on my TBR shelf. Maybe I'll get to it one of these days.

Your tastes and mine are very far apart! I liked this book a lot, and the film adaptation with Nick Nolte is one of my favorite movies. Maybe give the film a try?

Well, sir, I hope our tastes aren't that far apart. Vonnegut just hasn't held up for me.

Can you tell me what you see in Mother Night? Humor? Philosophy? What? I just didn't get anything interesting or useful out of it at all.

As for the movie, I dunno. There isn't in the novel to make me interested in the movie, but Netflix seems to think I'll like it. I've added it to my queue and we'll see when it comes up. If it's anything like the movie version of Catch-22, though, it will be a total bust. That was an awful movie. *sigh*