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Title: Jailbird by Kurt Vonnegut ISBN: 0-385-33390-0 Publisher: Delta Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: 12 January, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.12 (24 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: poignant portrait of fallen bureaucrat
Comment: Definitely the best of Vonnegut's novels that I've read, Jailbird is the story of Walter F. Starbuck, the smallest co-conspirator in the Watergate scandal. Having made his loyalties the best as he could, Walter finds himself in prison for withholding evidence against Nixon, even though he really had no true connection to him or respect from his fellow conspriators. After prison, Walter falls once again, committing a crime that mirrors his Watergate involvement in quite a few ways, and he goes to jail for the second time.
Vonnegut's ingenious humor is present always in the book, and his prose is bedazzlingly perfect for the subject. Even though the novel may seem sentimental at times, that seems to be Vonnegut's purpose: his character is a sentimental man and bureaucrat. Readers should note that Vonnegut also uses some symbolism to perfect effect, making the book subtler than most Vonnegut novels. All these elements are Vonnegut at his best; he recreates, hilariously and perfectly, the political world of modern times.
Throughout the story, Jailbird provides a pitiful hero, knocked down over and over again by his own fault in the bureaucratic world he has chosen for his home. It seems not so much the facelessness of the bureacratic system that destroys Walter(a theme visited over and over again in too many books, movies, etc.) as his own attempts to try and become part of that system and his emotional view of this world as a place where people are always considerate; his own desire to be a successful, protected, and respected man is the thing that makes him loyal and willing for all the wrong reasons and to the wrong people. In the end, Walter F. Starbuck is a victim of himself, a "jailbird."
Rating: 4
Summary: actually 4 1/2
Comment: This was the first vonnegut book I've read and it threw me quite a curveball. If you're not use to reading a vonnegut book it takes a different mindset. I was confused in the realm of reality. His inclusion of fictional characters in real life events was an interesting twist. I'm currently reading player piano and find it to be a much slower page turner then jailbird. My favorite so far is slaughterhouse five, but jailbird is definitely worth a read.
Rating: 4
Summary: Funny fiction
Comment: This book may make you laugh out loud. It did me, several times. Like when Walter's date, Sarah, guffaws at his boyish attempt to kiss her, "braying like she was at a Marx brothers' movie." Or something.
Walter F. Starbuck's striking characteristic, to me, is his humility. He seems to have no hidden pretenses about his role in the world, never forgets his humble origins, never takes others for granted or assumes he's superior to them. He seems generally to assume he's inferior. Yes, he did make some mistakes, but they don't seem gargantuan (for example, he "ratted" on a one-time friend, mentioning during an investigative hearing that his friend had once been a member of the Communist party).
The narrative just keeps rolling until about the end, when poor Mrs. Jack Graham, Walter's first sexual experience, dies as a fantastically wealthy bag lady, in her tennis shoes, as it were, filled with a desultory 4,000 one dollar bills and her last will and testament (to distribute her corporate empire to the American people). The ending just seems slightly abrupt.
But one important piece of philosophical advice may have been given by Walter, when he notes that, no matter what course he had taken in his life, it really wouldn't make any difference in a world (which is) just a small iota in an infinitely expanding universe. Except to us? Diximus.
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Title: Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut ISBN: 038533351X Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 01 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: Or Pearls Before Swine by Kurt Vonnegut ISBN: 0385333471 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 01 October, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Deadeye Dick by Kurt Vonnegut ISBN: 0385334176 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 11 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut ISBN: 0385333781 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 12 January, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Slapstick: Or Lonesome No More! by Kurt Vonnegut ISBN: 0385334230 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 11 May, 1999 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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