God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

By: Kurt Vonnegut

Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer

Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins

Publisher's summary

Eliot Rosewater, a drunk volunteer fireman and president of the fabulously rich Rosewater Foundation, is about to attempt a noble experiment with human nature, with a little help from writer Kilgore Trout. The result is Kurt Vonnegut's funniest satire, an etched-in-acid portrayal of the greed, hypocrisy, and follies of the flesh we are all heir to.

As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of Kurt Vonnegut's book, you'll also receive an exclusive Jim Atlas interview. This interview – where James Atlas interviews Gay Talese about the life and work of Kurt Vonnegut – begins as soon as the audiobook ends.

This production is part of our Audible Modern Vanguard line, a collection of important works from groundbreaking authors.

©1965 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (P)2008 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"[Vonnegut] at his wildest best!" ( The New York Times Book Review)

the afterword is terrible

they abrupt end of the book is typical and beloved by Vonnegut. the afterword is awful. b ready to stop audible.

Excellent Performance

Eric Michael Summerer's narration was absolutely top-notch! I'll be looking for more audiobooks he's narrated.

The portrayal of the main characters multiple personalities are written wonderfully and performed beautifully!

There are so many things to like! Humor, realism, and thoughtful provocative ideas are just a few.

A Story About Money

If you could sum up God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater in three words, what would they be?

The Money Shot

What was one of the most memorable moments of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater?

Vonnegut has so many classic situations in his stories, that not only make you laugh but cry at the same time so its tough. But I would say when Rosewater comes to a moment of clarity at the end of the novel it really pulls the story together in a profound way. You may not like his response, but you must admit that it solidifies his narrative.

Which character – as performed by Eric Michael Summerer – was your favorite?

Rosewater. The images of him living day to day in squalor but being so happy and helping others was well done. "How Can We Help You"....terrific.

Who was the most memorable character of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and why?

The woman who called Rosewater up every day was my favorite for some reason. She was the average person who struggles to deal with life, the fact that Rosewater took time for her sums up the treatise of the novel. The everyday contains magical qualities that can never be overlooked, being kind to people is always a good investment.

Any additional comments?

Its almost impossible to review Vonnegut, who is my view is the most over looked and under rated American novelist ever. He wrote some of the best books in the American literary tradition. This book, though dated in some respects is timeless in others. I can understand why some people don't like his work, but if you do you owe it to yourself to listen to this well produced thoughtful version.

Changed my view of money

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

"Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed."

Wow.

Any additional comments?

This book speaks perfectly to our times. Poor people "earn" money while rich people "make" money. Money is a fiction we all buy into, without realizing the game is rigged.

Tolerable short listen

At times this book was humorous and probably quite salacious for the time it was written. The characters were interesting and well developed but the story was jumbled and rambling. The ending was abrupt and didn't provide closure. Not sure if the author wasn't as crazy as his main character, Eliot. Snippets of good writing but overall a disappointment. Others may disagree and it may be worth a five and one-half hour gamble if you want to experiment with an unusual listen.

Timeless Message

A concept, "slurp-slurp", as applicable in 2017 as it was when this book was written. "Same circus, different clowns." Knowing our history does not prevent its repetition. Bottom line of charitable giving, though, bears repeating.

Vonnegut - Love him or leave him?

Vonnegut seems to invoke the "love it or leave it" reaction and there are not many people who sit in the middle. I'll confess up front: I like his style and his social commentary, as the latter is usually spot on.

I can fully understand how his style would be too slow and detailed for some. This work in particular seems "over described". As well, in true Vonnegut fashion, the book contains tangential mini-stories that don't seem to have a reason in the larger construct. Many readers will be left scratching their head and asking "what the heck was that all about"?

So, give this a shot if you like Vonnegut. If you've never experienced his work, I recommend you start with some of his other more well know works (Slaughter house Five, Catch 22, etc.).

Not my favorite but Vonnegut none the less

Somewhat tedious imho, but feels much more substantial toward the end. I tend to lean towards his more other-worldly themes as this is more "real" than tralfamadore. His allegories hit home, with resignment and resolve just as Vonnegut fans would expect.

Hearts and Flowers, Flowers and Tears

"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." So begins Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s comical and moving autopsy of America, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965). Focusing on American wealth and poverty and winners and losers, Vonnegut introduces us to middle-aged Eliot Rosewater, heir to the massive Rosewater fortune. Eliot has been using his position as president of the Rosewater Foundation to help everyone who needs help in his small hometown of Rosewater, Indiana, answering the phone 24 hours a day, "Rosewater Foundation. How can we help you?" and giving emotional and/or financial comfort to anyone on the other end of the line. Although his ability to love "the little people," no matter how useless, criminal, or cracked, evokes a "God bless you, Mr. Rosewater" from the likes of the "ugly, boring, and stupid" spinster Diana Moon Glampers, it does not sit well with his free-enterprise loving, pubic-hair hating, die-hard republican Senator father, separates him from his loving but more human wife Sylvia, wins him nicknames like "The Nut," "The Saint," and "John the Baptist" from the workers at the law firm handling the Rosewater fortune, and earns him a weaselly sniper of a foe in the young lawyer Norman Mushari, who "slaveringly" thinks it will be easy to prove Eliot is insane and thus gain control of the Rosewater fortune by transferring it to a distant branch of the family living in Pisquontuit, Rhode Island.

Vonnegut caustically and amusingly details how American fortunes are made, how tabloid publications and deodorant advertising influence us, and how rich people tend to think poor people should be hard working and thankful. He introduces Eliot's distant cousin Fred as an ironic foil, depicting him as a life insurance salesman who guilts his male clients into "providing" for their wives ("brides") by buying life insurance and then when the men die receives his own "God bless you, Mr. Rosewater" from their widows. Vonnegut also makes Fred sympathetic by virtue of his being the son of a suicide ("Sons of suicides seldom do well") married to "a female chameleon trying to get ahead in the world."

Throughout the novel, Vonnegut relishes making fun of people rich and poor by exposing their physical and mental defects. This is usually funny but does at times verge on the mean-spirited or unfair (as in his depiction of the tall homosexual restauranteur Bunny Weeks, who has "eyes that were standard equipment for rich American fairies. . . junk jewelry eyes")

Throughout, Vonnegut delights in vivid and humorous descriptions. After a year in a sanitarium, Eliot looks like "an emaciated, feverish middle-aged boy. . . F. Scott Fitzgerald with one day to live." And the prolific and poor science fiction author Kilgore Trout, whose several book synopses read like Vonnegut's inner sf geek freed, celebrated, and mocked, looks when bearded "like a frightened, aging Jesus whose sentence to crucifixion had been commuted to imprisonment for life" and when shaven like "a kindly country undertaker."

Vonnegut also writes neat pithy lines like, "The most exquisite pleasure in the practice of medicine comes from nudging a layman in the direction of terror, then bringing him back to safety again."

One sign of the complexity of Vonnegut's satire of the "Money River" flowing through America, a small minority being born and living on its banks, the vast majority never knowing where it is, is that he inserts a minor character, Lincoln Ewald, who hates America because in it money is king (so far so good), but who is also an ardent Nazi sympathizer (ouch!). Another sign of its complexity is that there is an uncomfortable truth in Senator Rosewater's belief that if like Eliot you love everyone equally you cannot love anyone particularly, and love becomes like identical pieces of toilet paper. The anchor to hang onto amid the complexity and bitter humor MAY lie in Kilgore Trout's explanation of Eliot's behavior as an experiment to see if it's possible to love useless people: "We must find ways to love people who have no use," because "people can use all the uncritical love they can get" and because if we don't do it, "we might as well rub them out," and "if one man can do it, others can."

Vonnegut extends the meaning of his novel beyond the boundaries of America to human nature via riffs on things like the appalling allied firebombing of Dresden (and its effect on Eliot) and on an orgy of fish gaffing and braining by some Pisquontuit fishermen, leaving them "as satisfied with life as men can ever be."

The reader Eric Michael Summerer does a convincing Senator Rosewater delivering a speech admiring Augustan Rome, a fine orphan girl expressing her true feelings about her wealthy, ignorant, and arrogant masters, an uncanny grackle-voiced Lincoln Ewald saying, "Heil Hitler," a great bird singing, "Poo-tee-weet," and of course a convincingly cheerful, saintly, insanely sane and loving Eliot Rosewater.

In this novel Vonnegut works on the banks of the Twain River of sweet, hopeful, bitter, humorous American misanthropy.