Mother Night

Mother Night

Cover art of first edition (paperback)
Author	Kurt Vonnegut
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Novel
Publisher	Fawcett Publications/Gold Medal Books
Publication date	1961
Media type	Print (hardcover & paperback)
ISBN	978-0-385-33414-3

Mother Night is a novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut, first published in 1961. The title of the book is taken from Goethe's Faust.

It is the fictional memoirs of Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American, who moved to Germany in 1923 at age 11, and later became a well-known playwright and Nazi propagandist. The action of the novel is narrated (through the use of metafiction) by Campbell himself. The premise is that he is writing his memoirs while awaiting trial for war crimes in an Israeli prison. Howard W. Campbell also appears briefly in Vonnegut's later novel Slaughterhouse-Five.

Plot summary

Germany before World War II

As the Nazi Party consolidates its power over 1930s Germany, Campbell decides to remain in the country despite his parents' decision to leave. Campbell continues to write plays, his only social contacts being members of the Nazi Party. Being of sufficiently Aryan parentage, Campbell becomes a member of the party in name only. He is politically apathetic, caring only for his art and his wife Helga, who is also the starring actress in all of his plays.

The first part of the book ends after Campbell visits the Berlin Zoo and encounters Frank Wirtanen, an agent of the U.S. War Department. Wirtanen wants Campbell to spy for the United States in the impending world war. Campbell immediately rejects the offer, but Wirtanen quickly adds that he wants Campbell to think about it. He tells him that Campbell's answer will come in the form of how he acts and what positions he assumes once the war begins.

Germany in World War II and afterward

Once World War II starts, Campbell begins to make his way up through Joseph Goebbels' propaganda organization, eventually becoming the "voice" of broadcasts aimed at converting Americans to the Nazi cause. Unbeknownst to the Nazis, all of the idiosyncrasies of Campbell's speeches – deliberate pauses, coughing, etc. – are part of the coded information he is passing to the American Office of Strategic Services. Campbell never discovers, nor is he ever told, the information that he is sending.

About halfway through the war, Helga goes to the Eastern Front to entertain German troops. Campbell is extremely distraught when he hears that the camp Helga visited in Crimea has been overrun by Red troops and she was presumed dead. In early 1945, just before the Red Army invades Berlin near the war's end, Campbell visits his in-laws one last time. During the visit, Campbell has an exchange with Helga's younger sister, Resi, that resonates with him for years afterward. After Campbell is captured by American forces, Wirtanen works out a deal in which Campbell is set free and given passage to New York City.

In New York City, circa 1960, Campbell lives a lonely, anonymous life, sustained only by memories of his wife and an indifferent curiosity about his eventual fate. His only friend is George Kraft, a likewise lonely neighbor—who, through an extraordinary coincidence, also happens to be a Soviet intelligence agent. He tries to trick Campbell into fleeing to Moscow by publicizing the fact that Campbell has been living in the United States since the end of the war.

A white supremacist organization discovers his existence and makes him a cause celebre, inviting him to speak to new recruits as a "true American patriot". The group's leader, a dentist named Lionel Jones, shows up at Campbell's apartment with a surprise: a woman claiming to be Helga, alive and well and professing her undying love. Campbell's will to live returns for the first time in years and remains even after he finds out that she is not Helga, but rather her younger sister Resi. They plan to escape to Mexico City after attending one of Jones' fascist meetings.

There, Wirtanen makes an appearance to warn Campbell of Kraft's plot and Resi's complicity. Heartbroken, Campbell decides to go along with the charade. He confronts Kraft and Resi, the latter swearing her feelings for him are genuine. The FBI then raids the meeting and takes Campbell into custody, while Resi commits suicide by taking a cyanide capsule. As before, Wirtanen uses his influence to have Campbell set free. Once Campbell returns to his apartment, however, he realizes that he has no real reason to continue living, and decides to turn himself in to the Israelis to stand trial.

Israel

The book ends as it began, with Campbell sitting in an Israeli jail cell awaiting his trial. Coincidentally, he meets Adolf Eichmann and gives him advice on how to write an autobiography. He then is transferred to a different holding cell where he further awaits his trial. At the very end of the book, Campbell inserts a letter that he has just received from Wirtanen. The corroborating evidence that he was indeed an American spy during World War II has finally arrived, and Wirtanen writes that he will testify to Campbell's true loyalties in court. Rather than being relieved, Campbell feels "nauseated" by the idea that he will be saved from death and granted freedom when he is no longer able to enjoy anything that life has to offer. In the last lines, Campbell tells us that he will hang himself not for crimes against humanity, but rather for "crimes against himself".

"The Moral of the Story"

"This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don't think it's a marvelous moral, I just happen to know what it is..."

Vonnegut's "So-it-goes" nonchalance announces on the first page of the Introduction. "The moral of the story" appears again and throughout Mother Night from this point on, and Vonnegut periodically elaborates upon it after saying, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

As a minor adjunct to this moral, Vonnegut later offers the observation that "When you're dead, you're dead." The author then pauses and says, "And yet another moral occurs to me now: Make love when you can. It's good for you."

Literary devices

Throughout the novel Vonnegut uses meta-fiction devices to call attention to the text itself. Most notable is Vonnegut's framing of the novel as a historical document. The editor's note at the beginning of the novel suggests Campbell's writings, the text of the novel itself, are a manuscript that Vonnegut received and is editing for public view.

These devices of meta-fiction can also be expanded to include Vonnegut's approach to character introductions, and character development. In opposition to the common Show, don't tell rule in literature, Vonnegut observes his characters from an almost omniscient perspective; for example, "His name is Andor Gutman. Andor is a sleepy, not very bright Estonian Jew. He spent two years in the extermination camp at Auschwitz. According to his own reluctant account, he came this close to going up a smokestack of a crematorium there."

While this style of character deconstructionism is less prevalent in Mother Night than it is in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Breakfast of Champions, the pervading-style of prose throughout the book is largely intertwined with, as previously mentioned, meta-fiction techniques. Vonnegut's innovative literary omniscience is one of these techniques through which Vonnegut's trademark "so it goes..." attitude achieves a certain degree of meta-morality by virtue of its omniscient, dissociative and detached tone within the prose.

Adaptations

A film version was released in 1996, starring Nick Nolte as Campbell, Sheryl Lee as Helga/Resi, Alan Arkin as Kraft and John Goodman as Wirtanen.

In 2009, Audible.com produced an audio version of Mother Night, narrated by Victor Bevine, as part of its Modern Vanguard line of audiobooks.

External links