Combaters of Ubiquitous Corruption,

I could be Walter F. Starbuck, a man who planned nothing and accidentally stumbled into every chapter of his life.

I dwelled over Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut for months (however, it’s a good book). Walter F. Starbuck was President Nixon’s special advisor on youth affairs; innocuously in the vicinity of the Watergate scandal, he was imprisoned. He is released and then jailed again.

The main theme of the book, for me, is how Walter is a rubbish human being; he supposedly proves inadequate in almost every situation, yet the attractive and interesting situations keep arising. Walter is the son of the immigrant housekeepers for a family of wealthy entrepreneurs, one of whom took a liking to Walter and funded a Harvard education. At university, he dabbles in communism. He was a rubbish communist, he didn’t really believe in the anti-capitalist ethos and he certainly didn’t act accordingly. He had problems with colleagues, women and his family. He ends up losing all his possessions and all his relationships.

All of the above was probably a clever trick of the author, the story is told in the first person through the main character, Walter F. Starbuck, who would have the public believe that nothing is his fault and he’s completely unwitting and innocent. It could all be spin, I think this is the first time that I have read a book and mistrusted the narrator. He’s a conniving capitalist like the rest of them, he looks out for his own people and he is utterly selfish. Vonnegut subtly alludes to this at the end when he has Starbuck pull one or two more scams upon gaining freedom. Starbuck paints himself as hopeless to gain the sympathy vote, he’s apparently someone who is always in the wrong place at the wrong time, but is it all a trick? Only Kurt Vonnegut knew.