God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
1965 • 288 pages
Ratings33
Average rating3.7
15
Ratings33
Average rating3.7
Second only to Slaughterhouse-Five of Vonnegut's canon in its prominence and influence, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) presents Eliot Rosewater, an itinerant, semi-crazed millionaire wandering the country in search of heritage and philanthropic outcome, introducing the science fiction writer Kilgore Trout to the world and Vonnegut to the collegiate audience which would soon make him a cult writer.
Trout, modeled according to Vonnegut on the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (with whom Vonnegut had an occasional relationship) is a desperate, impoverished but visionary hack writer who functions for Eliot Rosewater as both conscience and horrid example. Rosewater, seeking to put his inheritance to some meaningful use (his father was an entrepreneur), tries to do good within the context of almost illimitable cynicism and corruption.
It is in this novel that Rosewater wanders into a science fiction conference – an actual annual event in Milford, Pennsylvania – and at the motel delivers his famous monologue evoked by science fiction writers and critics for almost half a century: "None of you can write for sour apples... but you're the only people trying to come to terms with the really terrific things which are happening today." Money does not drive Mr. Rosewater (or the corrupt lawyer who tries to shape the Rosewater fortune) so much as outrage at the human condition.
The novel was adapted for a 1979 Alan Menken musical. The novel is told mostly thru a collection of short stories dealing with Eliot's interactions with the citizens of Rosewater County, usually with the last sentence serving as a punch line. The antagonist's tale, Mushari's, is told in a similar short essay fashion. The stories reveal different hypocrisies of humankind in a darkly humorous fashion.
Reviews with the most likes.
Yeah, I didn't love this so much. It was random and odd, but not in an endearingly Vonnegutian way.
It was an interesting listen. It wasn't so compelling for me that I couldn't put it down. I mostly listened to it driving to and from work, it was good for that, but it didn't inspire those “driveway moments” where you you sit in the car listening for just a few more minutes.
Vonnegut's ninth novel. I enjoyed it – I've never met a Vonnegut book I didn't like – but this is somewhat different from the style I've noticed in his others I've read.
There is nothing fantastical here – no Ice-9, no aliens, no time travel. Hardly a requirement for a Vonnegut novel, of course. I didn't realize this until after, but there's another common Vonnegut motif absent here, the description of common objects in accurate-yet-alien terms.
This is, instead, a fairly straightforward morality play, a biting satire about charity, loving thy neighbor, and how people ought to act. Eliot Rosewater, drunk and heir to the Rosewater fortune, suddenly reverses course from most of his family, and begins using his fortune – as well as the rest of himself – to set up shop in his nominal hometown in Rosewater County and begin helping everyone there. With anything.
I don't sound enthusiastic about this, but I did like it a lot, and I consider it a thoughtful, clever, worthy addition to Vonnegut's catalog.
