JAILBIRD

Rating:
Summary: The literary equivalent of being jailed.
Review: This book is a lot like being in prison: it's unpleasant, boring, painful, and seems longer than it really is. The advantage this book has over prison, however, is the most obvious one: no rape.

Similar to Dead Eye Dick, something that one would not want to be similar to, Jailbird tells the life story of a man, jumping between various times, that's the son of immigrant servants that was sent to Harvard by a rich man, goes to Europe during World War 2 to assist in various ways, falls in love, blah blah blah, goes to jail, gets out, blah blah blah, meets an old girlfriend, becomes rich, blah blah, and goes back to jail. There are many events in this story, but they're not interesting. Vonnegut's simple style, which usually makes for lucid reading and goes unnoticed, is simply annoying. He does not employ the listen colon followed by text, but instead uses, "Peace," to mark the end of a passage. It made me angry. "Blah blah blah, stuff stuff stuff. Peace." It only made the unpleasantness that is this book more obtrusive.


Rating:
Summary: Vonnegut tackles political crime, but still fumbles the ball
Review: "Jailbird" is Vonnegut's attempt to bring the political upheavals of the 1970's into focus (Walter F. Starbucks, the lead character, is the least known of all the Watergate conspirators). Where he succeeds is in showing that things are not always as they seem and that everyone is redeemable. Where he fails is in his heavy-handed dealing with bums and the mis-characterization of one Kilgore Trout (his most popular character, drastically miscast as a conman in prison). A fine book full of funny and poignant moments, "Jailbird" unfortunately remains one of Vonnegut's lesser novels, and a contributer to the great glut that he fell into at the end of the '70's

Rating:
Summary: great
Review: Although I haven't read all of his books, this one is the best that I've come across. Very funny, ironic, witty and whatever makes a book worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: 3 and 1/2 Stars - Not up to his usual standard
Review: Although Vonnegut's deceptively simple prose and unyielding cynical bent are just as ever-present and by turns caustically, heart-piercingly dead accurate and hilarous, this book ends up falling short of the high standard that Vonnegut had set for himself with masterpieces like The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, and Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut here has created a protagonist who gets himself somehow involved in pretty much all of the major American historical events from the Great Depression through the Watergate scandal... He accomplishes this with a neat (and sometimes confusing) interweaving of fact and fiction: dropping fictional characters and institutions into real, factual events -... The author's observations are as cynical and misanthropic as ever (and maybe even a little more depressing than normal - as we realize in the end that the protagonist, ruined as he is, is basically a decent man), but it is lacking that Great Underlying Moral that is the heart and backbone of every great Vonnegut novel. He attempts to satarize all of these major events in one book, and ends up doing none of them particularly well - much the same thing that happens in another one of his lesser books, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Still, this IS a Vonnegut, so it can't be all that bad - and it is worth reading if you're a major fan of the author. If you're a Vonnegut fan, you'll want to read this, eventually; if you're a neophyte, you should read some of his other, better books first.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good.
Review: An enjoyable book though confusing when fiction is mixed with historical characters. It's always challenging and entertaining to figure out where in time you've been taken throughout the book. Not as good as Slaughterhouse V, but still good. I read it in about 3 or 4 minutes. I'd probably enjoy the book the second time around.

Rating:
Summary: Vonnegut at His Best
Review: Anyone claiming that Vonnegut went into a "glut" in the 70's needs to have their reading glasses readjusted. Not only is this the best novel that Vonnegut wrote, it is the best novel I've ever read. After comparing "Jailbird" to Vonnegut classics such as "Breakfast of Champions", "Slaughterhouse-Five" and "Cat's Cradle", I see no reason not to believe that this is Vonnegut's best work yet. As usual Vonnegut strikes a major blow on the wealthy, the crazy, and the losers of this world. Even Kilgore Trout steps in to make a brief appearance. Whether you are a Vonnegut fan or not this is a must read novel.

Rating:
Summary: Under-rated. One of Vonnegut's Best.
Review: Beautiful, funny and touching. Don't buy into this "late '70 slump" malarky; this is one of Vonnegut's best, and I've read everything the man has ever published

Rating:
Summary: poignant portrait of fallen bureaucrat
Review: Definitely the best of Vonnegut's novels that I've read, Jailbird is the story of Walter F. Starbuck, the smallest co-conspirator in the Watergate scandal. Having made his loyalties the best as he could, Walter finds himself in prison for withholding evidence against Nixon, even though he really had no true connection to him or respect from his fellow conspriators. After prison, Walter falls once again, committing a crime that mirrors his Watergate involvement in quite a few ways, and he goes to jail for the second time.

Vonnegut's ingenious humor is present always in the book, and his prose is bedazzlingly perfect for the subject. Even though the novel may seem sentimental at times, that seems to be Vonnegut's purpose: his character is a sentimental man and bureaucrat. Readers should note that Vonnegut also uses some symbolism to perfect effect, making the book subtler than most Vonnegut novels. All these elements are Vonnegut at his best; he recreates, hilariously and perfectly, the political world of modern times.

Throughout the story, Jailbird provides a pitiful hero, knocked down over and over again by his own fault in the bureaucratic world he has chosen for his home. It seems not so much the facelessness of the bureacratic system that destroys Walter(a theme visited over and over again in too many books, movies, etc.) as his own attempts to try and become part of that system and his emotional view of this world as a place where people are always considerate; his own desire to be a successful, protected, and respected man is the thing that makes him loyal and willing for all the wrong reasons and to the wrong people. In the end, Walter F. Starbuck is a victim of himself, a "jailbird."

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down.
Review: Every time I read a Kurt Vonnegut novel, I wonder why I havent read all of his works. This is a brilliant, hilarious novel rich with cynicism and irony. Vonnegut's dark humor is the kind that doesnt always make you laugh out loud, but cracks you up inside.. I finished the book in about 3 or 4 hours..

Rating:
Summary: a comic Kafka for the end of the century
Review: I enjoyed the 3 Kurt Vonnegut works I've read so far. This one cruises and rollicks along as well as any. The jokes, the unbelievable coincidences, and the compassionate fury at man's inhumanity to man, both the premeditated kind and that resulting from sheer stupidity and carelessness. The nasty and the rich and powerful get even nastier and richer and more powerful, while the innocent go to jail, and the idealists go out of their minds. The twists and turns of the plot keep you turning the page. As the best fiction often does, this novel tells human and societal truths better than a factional account. The main character, Walter F. Starbuck, is sponsored by an eccentric millionaire who stuttered and was universally despised - his stammer started after witnessing a massacre of workers in front of his father's factory. Moral: the sensitive man cannot protest, only stutter, and is looked on as a fool by all; is that not the way of the world? Grown-up, Starbuck becomes a socialist and joins the communist party, like thousands of others during the Depression era: what could be more natural? A few years later, being a communist becomes a crime against humanity, and Starbuck is interviewed by the commission. Unable to take this persecution of good intentions and high ideals seriously, Starbuck flippantly announces that a famous patriot was also a communist in those days, as were so many others. This offhand remark sends the patriot to jail and ruins his life, a fact which haunts Starbuck till the end of the story.

The story is full of ironic symbolism and is almost a comic allegory in its treatment of contemporary American society. High humanistic ideals and compassion become a crime; those guilty of it are prosecuted with fury. Starbuck's foolishness causes a man's ruin, but rather than rail against society for this, Starbuck is racked with guilt, undiluted by his own imprisonment years later due to Watergate (tho Starbuck's role in it is never explained and Vonnegut has a ball playing with Starbuck's tenuous connection with Nixon: his entire employment in the administration is in a basement office that no-one visits and hardly anyone knows about; Starbuck's reports (on "youth", a subject Starbuck knows little about) are accepted but never commented on in any way.

Vonnegut - a comic Kafka for the end of the century.