by Jessica Schneider

Created on: June 16, 2009

It is hard not to enjoy Vonnegut. Although Slaughterhouse Five still remains my favorite book of his, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is a quick and entertaining read that cleverly pokes fun at capitalism and greed while being fun all the way through. Eliot Rosewater is a fat slob. His family has recently inherited a large sum of money ($87,472,033.61 to be exact). From the very start, readers are given Vonnegut's quick wit and humor:

"A sum of money is a leading character in this tale about people, just as a sum of honey might properly be a leading character in a tale about bees," he states in the book's opening line.

Basically, the novel is about the Rosewater family and how they invest their efforts in charity as a means of keeping the government from taxing their money. Right there the subject reminded me of the great line muttered in one of Fellini's films, where one character states the Benjamin Franklin quote, "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes, And were I to sum up this novel, I'd say that sounds just about right.

What makes this book so funny is that Eliot Rosewater is sort of a moron as well as a mediocrity. That he ends up with 57 illegitimate children at the end is beside the point, but the character goes to such extremes to make up for the guilt he feels from having accidentally killed three innocent fire fighters during WWII that his "goodness" borders on insane. Eliot uses his wealth to "better the community" yet ends up battling against a lawyer who is struggling to steal a bit of the Rosewater fortune for himself. And all the while this is going on, I can't remove the image of Eliot sitting on the toilet surrounded by clippings from Life and Look magazine taped to the wall. That is just some of the little details Vonnegut uses to make his memorable yet pathetic character such a success. Also, the tone that Vonnegut uses also works well because it is, well, pure Vonnegut. Here is just one example that made me laugh out loud:

"The Client who was about to make Eliot's black telephone ring was a sixty-eight-year old virgin who, by almost anybody's standards, was too dumb to live. Her name was Diana Moon Glampers. No one had ever loved her. There was no reason why anyone should. She was ugly, stupid, and boring. On the rare occasions when she had to introduce herself, she always said her full name, and followed that with the mystifying equation that had thrust her life so pointlessly:

"My mother was a moon. My father

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