• Title: God bless you, Mr. Rosewater
• Author: Kurt Vonnegut
• Genre/Subject: 1960s underground literature
• Publisher: Dell
• Publication Date: 1965
• Start date: 4/30/24
• Finish date: 5/1/24

Review:

This was 190 pages of excellence. Reading Vonnegut always makes me feel like I need a shower and a walk in the sunshine after. But that just means it’s dark, it doesn’t affect the exellence.

The novel tells the story of Eliot Rosewater, drunk, volunteer fireman, and president of the fabulously rich Rosewater Foundation. A man completely in love with humanity but faced with the greed, hypocrisy, waste, and sheer folly of modern society. Modern as in 1965, which has not improved to this day, if anything it has gotten much worse.

Graham Greene said of Kurt Vonnegut that he was one of the greatest living American writers. For years he was too far-out for mainstream publishers but was a folk hero in underground literature. Once people got a hold of Slaughterhouse Five that all changed and he rapidly became the must read author of the 1960s, and his popularity continues to this day.

I had never heard of this novel, I’ve read Cat’s Cradle and of course Slaughterhouse Five but this one I went into with zero preconceived notions. This did not disappoint, it was incisive, funny, touching and bizarre all at the same time.

A fast read but one that never failed to be engaging and artful. “I’m going to love these discarded Americans, even though they’re useless and unattractive.” God bless you, Mr. Rosewater.