This may be one of the most difficult to read of Vonnegut's novels. The themes of absurdity and fatalism are presented in a dark manner. Although the narration itself flows easily like a natural conversation and Vonnegut presents his themes in no uncertain terms (pages 224-225, 251), the characters are difficult to warm up to because each is traced with evil. The protagonist, Howard W. Campbell, Jr, was a "beacon" for Nazi propaganda and associated with the most notorious of the Nazi anti-heroes. The story goes back and forth between skittish encounters and tragic events that depict the illusion of an individual's purpose on earth. Entertaining, enlightening, but heavy.

A key in interpreting this convoluted and dark novel is Vonnegut's dedication "to Mata Hari." Some brief research into the life of Mata Hari reveals some obvious parallels with the confessions of Howard W. Campbell, Jr. Mata Hari's haunting legacy is whether she was guilty of espionage or not. Mother Night starts with the same question regarding Campbell. Similar to Hari, Campbell had been generally viewed as an artist, a free-spirited bohemian prior to his war experience. Also, similar to Mata, Campbell's relationships and liaisons with powerful men took him across international borders frequently, which eventually would lead to his downfall.

In both cases, it is pointless to speculate whether or not Campbell or Hari were spies. Both were not only helpless in the face of the war machine ("gear teeth" in the "cuckoo clock of hell"), but also naïvely ignorant of the gravity of their respective situations after their arrests by the military. Hence the behaviors of both seem unfathomable, considering that each had actively determined the course of their life and constructed their own legendary persona, but also seemed pre-determined to be pawns in the immense storm of war.

Mother Night is a two-fold investigation of self-deception and fatalism. Fatalism seems to be a product of the funny mind games we play with ourselves when we rationalize that what we are doing not only right, but our only choice. Possibly, fatalism is a product of learned helplessness, where we no longer feel our actions can make a difference. Therefore, we tell ourselves lies to make our actions seem justified and we are lulled into inaction. In the end, the damage is done and the lesson is that our lies may be more influential than our truths.

Vonnegut begins Mother Night with an introduction stating that this is the only story of his that he knows the moral, which happens to be: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." For an author whose novels often read like a Jacob's Ladder toy, amusing in their seeming lack of logic, it seems odd that he would write a novel with a clear and straightforward moral. However, what Vonnegut accomplishes in Mother Night is to rescue post-modernism from its more nihilistic tendencies, and makes it clear that our unreal selves can sometimes have real consequences.

Mother Night is apparently the diary of Howard W. Campbell Jr., written while he was awaiting a war crime trial in Israel. Of course Vonnegut is using the theme of a found text while claiming he only edited the manuscript. Much like the characters in his books, the authenticity of the novel itself is amorphous.

Through the course of the novel Campbell informs us that he was once a playwright turned Nazi propagandist who transmitted broadcasts espousing the Aryan philosophy across Europe. Similar to Reifenstahl's claims, Campbell states that his own politics are nonexistent, and that he was merely doing his job. In fact, he purposefully makes these broadcasts so over-the-top that no one could possibly see them as anything but ridiculous, but in a world where people like Hitler and Himmler somehow took over an entire country, Campbell's melodramatic broadcasts are viewed as genius. Soon he is contacted by an undercover U.S. agent who he affectionately calls his "Blue Fairy Godmother." This agent forcibly recruit's Campbell as a double agent, and using Campbell's broadcasts the Blue Fairy Godmother is able to transmit secret codes to the allied forces.

Vonnegut states in the book that the reason people are able to commit atrocities and still see themselves as a good person is the modern condition of schizophrenia. This leads to the question of whether or not Campbell is making up the Blue Fairy Godmother. Could the Blue Fairy Godmother be Campbell's own form of schizophrenia?

By the end of the book Campbell turns himself into the Israeli authorities so he can stand trial for war crimes. In a sense, it doesn't really matter whether or not Campbell was a double agent because his actions had very real and harmful consequences regardless. He stoked the coals of the Nazi propaganda machine, and regardless of whether he is guilty under the law, Vonnegut uses Campbell's own admission of guilt to show that he is morally guilty. Whether or not Campbell was a double agent he is guilty of pretending to be a Nazi sympathizer. For a post-modern novel this is a very hard edged morality tale. Oftentimes post-modernism is criticized for moral relativity (interestingly enough, those who I've heard use moral relativity the most are conservative historians who wish to defend historical figures who have done questionable acts, slavery being a prime example). What Vonnegut accomplishes in Mother Night is to make it clear that while the "self" is amorphous and changing, our actual actions have a clear impact on others and cannot be fortified from morality.

It's been some time since I finished reading Mother Night, so all I am left with is a smoldering memory of what I thought of the book at the time. Since that's what I have to work with, bear that in mind as you read this review. Like most Vonnegut books, this takes on a different level of writing than many of the books out there. As such, they're generally better than most anything you'll pull off the shelves of your local bookstore.

Mother Night is no different, despite the fact it's not one of his best works. In his own words, Vonnegut describes this book as sub-par, or at best, average. For him, maybe I agree. But the book on its own merits is still quite good. Vonnegut has a way of writing that few can attain. He is both deep yet easy to read, a feat accomplished by few writers.

In brief, the book is about an ex-Nazi radio host who is long removed from the war and generally trying to stay below the radar of modern times in America. His guilt or innocence is up to the reader to decide. There is more to the story than I suggest here. Readers of Vonnegut know that nothing is ever that simple in his books. Maybe that's because nothing is ever that simple in life to begin with. Vonnegut captures that in his works.

The book is good, but not vintage Vonnegut. It moves well enough, but can be a tad slow at times. Overall, this is probably a 3.5 star book. Since there is no 3.5 rating, I am left to give it 4, since it's probably only fair to compare it with other fiction, and not only against his other works. Overall, for Vonnegut, I would say this is a solid 3: average, solid, enjoyable.

Overall, not his best work, but worth the read nonetheless.

For quite a while I had been planning on reading some of Vonnegut's books, but I kept forgetting and grabbing other things from my TBR list. But when a month back I saw the author interviewed in two of my favorite shows regarding his new book "A man without a country", I was once more enticed to follow-up on the idea of reading his works.

It seemed to me that "Mother Night" was a good place to start as any, even though most people's starting point would probably be "Slaughterhouse Five", which I will hopefully get around to reading soon. In "Mother Night", Vonnegut presents us with an extremely interesting setting, which contains a whole array of "gray situations", since Howard W. Campbell, Jr. tells his story as an American spy working in the German publicity machine during World War II. What makes the case even more interesting is that the narrator is not really clear regarding the events that developed during that period. Logically, one would expect Howard to say he hated what he had to do in order to support the US, but in fact we are faced with a scenario that allows for a lot more ambiguity than that. And even though, I have only read this novel by this author so far, I believe that this is one of his most salient characteristics.

Besides the interesting storyline, I was pleasantly impressed by the author's writing style, using short chapters that are somewhat linked in their main topics, but that are not completely linear. This reminds me of the work of one of my favorite Latin American authors, Eduardo Galeano, who uses a similar approach to writing. If you are interested in reading about the history Latin America and like Vonnegut's style, I highly recommend Galeano's non-fiction book "The Open Veins of Latin America".

Coming back to Vonnegut, I recommend "Mother Night" to all those that enjoy stories in which ethics and the concept of what is wrong and what is right play a central role. As to me, I am already looking forward to my next Vonnegut read.

I have tried to read Vonnegut's books on many occasions, and have never been able to finish them. I found _Mother Night_ to be very readable...
First, it is a short book. The author's style adds to this by the wonder of the 1-2 page chapter.
Next, I found myself much more interested in the story he tells here than in others I have attempted.

So, what's this book all about? It tells the tale of a man who served the Nazis in his heart and in his very being as a radio propagandist. However, this man was an American by birth and was solicited by the American government to serve as a spy, sending coded messages through the very same radio broadcasts in which he mocked and criticized American actions (especially Franklin Delano Rosenfeld). We read his "memoirs" as he sits in a Jerusalem jail in 1961. We discover what he has lost over the course of the war and the afterwar era.

As I said, I enjoyed this book, both for its story and for the writing used. It's an enjoyable read!