Opinions of a Wolf

Summary:
A satire on free enterprise, money, and capitalism in America told by examining the fictional Rosewaters–an uber-wealthy American family whose ancestor acquired his wealth by essentially profiteering during the Civil War. The current Rosewater fights in WWII and returns with two crazy ideas. First, that everyone deserves to be equally happy. Second, that people who inherited wealth did nothing to deserve it. He responds to this conundrum of conscience by returning to his ancestor’s hometown and using the Rosewater Foundation to help the “useless poor.” In the meantime, a lawyer by the name of Mushari decides to attempt to prove that Mr. Rosewater is insane, and the foundation money should be handed off to his cousin, currently a suicidal, middle-class insurance man.

Review:
How to review Vonnegut? Upheld as the epitome of 20th century American writing. He is certainly prolific, and some of his books absolutely deserve the high praise (Slaughterhouse-Five springs to mind). I don’t feel that this novel lives up to his reputation, however. I was left feeling that I somehow had missed his point. That he was attempting to make some high and mighty, heavy-handed vision known to me, and it just didn’t come through.

I think part of the problem stems from the fact that the first third of the book is focused on Eliot Rosewater, the next on his cousin, and the last on Eliot again. Just as I was getting into Eliot’s story, it switched to his cousin. Then when I was getting into his cousin’s story, it switched back to Eliot. To top it all off, the ending left me with little to no resolution on either one. Maybe Vonnegut’s point is that capitalism either makes you crazy or depressed with no way out? I’m not sure.

That’s not to say that this wasn’t a fun read, though. Vonnegut crafts the mid-western town Eliot lives in and the Rhodes Island seacoast town his cousin lives in with delicious detail. What is interesting about both are of course the people in the towns surrounding the main characters, and not the main characters themselves. In particular the Rhodes Island town is full of surprisingly well-rounded secondary characters from the cousin’s wife who’s experimenting in a lesbian relationship, to the local fisherman and his sons, to the local restaurant owner who is intensely fabulous (yes, the gay kind of fabulous. There’s quite a bit of LGBTQIA+ in this book). I was so interested in this town. This was a town that actually demonstrated the problems innate in some people having too much money while others don’t have enough. This was so much more interesting than Rosewater’s sojourn in Indiana. But then! Just when I was really getting into it and thinking this book might approach Slaughterhouse-Five level….bam! Back to Indiana.

Much more interesting than the heavy-handed money message was the much more subtle one on the impact of war. Mr. Rosewater’s sanity issues go back to WWII. I won’t tell you what happened, because the reveal is quite powerful. Suffice to say, Vonnegut clearly understood the impact WWII had on an entire generation and clearly thought about the impact of war on humanity in general. In this way, this book is quite like Slaughterhouse-Five. Another interesting way that it’s similar is that Mr. Rosewater listens to a bird tweeting in the same manner (poo-tee-weet!) I haven’t read enough Vonnegut to know, but I wonder if these two items show up in many of his works? The birds, especially, are interesting.

Overall, if you’re a Vonnegut enthusiast, enjoy reading for setting and character studies, and don’t mind a message that’s a bit heavy-handed, you will enjoy this book. Folks just looking for a feel of what makes Vonnegut held in such high esteem should stick to Slaughterhouse-Five though.

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3.5 out of 5

Length: 190 pages – average but on the shorter side

Source: PaperBackSwap

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