God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

Vonnegut's ninth novel. I enjoyed it – I've never met a Vonnegut book I didn't like – but this is somewhat different from the style I've noticed in his others I've read.

There is nothing fantastical here – no Ice-9, no aliens, no time travel. Hardly a requirement for a Vonnegut novel, of course. I didn't realize this until after, but there's another common Vonnegut motif absent here, the description of common objects in accurate-yet-alien terms.

This is, instead, a fairly straightforward morality play, a biting satire about charity, loving thy neighbor, and how people ought to act. Eliot Rosewater, drunk and heir to the Rosewater fortune, suddenly reverses course from most of his family, and begins using his fortune – as well as the rest of himself – to set up shop in his nominal hometown in Rosewater County and begin helping everyone there. With anything.

I don't sound enthusiastic about this, but I did like it a lot, and I consider it a thoughtful, clever, worthy addition to Vonnegut's catalog.