Reconnoiterers of an Eleemosynary Stance,

Squinting, he tried to decipher the title of the book that I was reading, ‘God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater? What’s it about?’, he asked, ‘Nothing’, I replied.

Of course, it’s not about nothing, I made the judgement that Kurt Vonnegut was not for him. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is the story of a sum of money as the author himself says. Eliot Rosewater has inherited his family’s ill-gotten wealth. Antagonised by his son’s expenditure on good deeds for the poor and the fact that there is no one in line to succeed Eliot to the fortunes of the Rosewater Foundation and take control of the estate from him, Senator Lister Rosewater rages.

I like to think of this book as a test, how the reader (I used to be told off by an English teacher for overuse of the term, ‘the reader’) feels about Eliot Rosewater is a reflection of the type of person they are. Are they disgusted by his physical appearance? Are they baffled by Eliot’s use of his money?

You either love him or hate him…I thought he was alright.

I was impressed by his choices and stubbornness but I thought he could do better. How do I rank?

Of all the books by Kurt Vonnegut I’ve read so far, I’ve had most respect for Kilgore Trout in this one. My favourite part is completely superfluous to the narrative and it relates to the work of Trout, “Trout’s favourite formula was to describe a perfectly hideous society, not unlike his own, and then, toward the end, to suggest ways in which it could be improved.” In Trout’s book, 2BR02B, the situation was as described; “All serious diseases had been conquered. So death was voluntary...” I love these quotes, other readers will find their own more meaningful quotes, the beauty of the book is that we will all have different favourites (there’s a cliché).

There’s one absolutely outstanding moment, and it’s up there with THE punchline in Marion & Geoff, it stands on its own brilliantly, but it is complimented by an incident in Slaughterhouse Five, the strange thing is that this book is published before Slaughterhouse Five, yet I feel that the moment I talk of carries more comic ballast, if the two are read out of order. It’s a minor point and those who have read the books or will do so on my advice, because they want to be cool, will know to what I refer.

My love of the work of Kurt Vonnegut grows, whilst I am playing catch-up to many Vonnegut fans, I still think that the Vonnegut boom will come many years from now. I have a passion for reading entertaining books that mean something and books such as Kurt Vonnegut’s are far weightier than they can ever seem.