God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
(Kurt Vonnegut, Jr)
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is, in my mind, one of his best works and I believe one of his most overlooked. At first reading one may think it is simply a tale about the rich versus the poor or that it is some sort of socialistic propaganda. But it goes deeper than this. The book examines the origin of wealth and how it is distributed in a capitalistic society; how the means of acquiring wealth may sometimes be cruel or seem unfair. This is all on the surface of the novel. Below this surface, however, is the more important question: how is it possible, or is it possible, to love and value people on the bottom rung of society's ladder? Is it possible for someone born into the highest class in society to give all that up in order to work with the indigent, the homeless, the insane or those whom society would not miss if they were gone? In the novel, Eliot Rosewater is the aristocratic son of a U.S. Senator, serving as the president of the Rosewater Foundation. After a suffering a nervous breakdown near the end of his term of service in World War II, Eliot returns to the United States and resumes his privileged life. However, Eliot isn't as recovered from his breakdown as everyone around him has assumed and he proves this by deserting his wife, abandoning his life of luxury and going on a trek across the country in order to find some meaningful thing to do with his life. His search takes him back to his hometown in Rosewater, Indiana and he sets up the Rosewater Foundation's offices there. He believes he is doing good work there, helping the town's poor, crazy and inept. The rest of Eliot's family, however, believe that he has gone insane. Eliot must now defend himself and prove his sanity in order to maintain his control of the Rosewater Foundation. The way in which he does this is pure Vonnegut magic, whimsy, hilarity and thought provoking satire. This book is as important as any of Vonnegut's more notable works, such as Slaughterhouse Five or Breakfast of Champions and is an entertaining and thoughtful experience for all readers.
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