God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

"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. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun."

Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater remains as relevant today on the question of class relations. Through his satirical look at the American elite, such as the Rosewaters and their ilk in Rhoe Island, one is reminded of the class war rhetoric and anti-poor beliefs of the Mitt Romneys of the world. Or even the way conservatives and even some moderate Democrats disparage the less fortunate, espouse the 'free enterprise,' or defend corporations. Taking it to absurd levels for the purpose of satire, Vonnegut even has the poor thanking the wealthy for the ocean, the moon. 

If this book was relevant to the changing times of the 1960s, an age of civil rights activism, sexual liberation, Cold War fears, cultural and ideological warfare, not much has changed in US discourse regarding poverty. We still blame the poor for their condition, while praising the 1 percent, defending capitalism, and refusing to dismantle the ways in which we have created 'excess' or 'useless' people trapped in poverty. Perhaps we can learn something from Eliot Rosewater after all on uncritical love and kindness toward others? 

More amazingly, Vonnegut's world is full of intertextuality. He alludes to characters, themes, pictures (the woman and the Shetland pony), and similar themes throughout his oeuvre, particularly on human nature, the meaning of existence, and man's inhumanity to man. Though not science fiction, this novel valiantly defends both the literary merit and universal message of science fiction as a concern for the future of humanity. In this case, it seems like a socialist message, but one that can be construed as Christian or religious too, though Vonnegut warns us not to construe any coincidental parallels. Like Deadeye Dick, the question of identity and roots is omnipresent here. Several characters, whether Rosewaters or not, are influenced by their roots or family tree in interesting ways that intersect with ironic or humorous consequences. 

Ultimately, both liberals, or leftists, and conservatives misunderstand the wretched of the earth, who, in this novel, are centered on the poor of Rosewater County, Indiana, who are romanticized by Eliot and criminalized by Eliot's father, Senator Rosewater. Nonetheless, here are some favorited quotations from the text highlighting the main themes:

"And he was witless enough, too, to imagine that Trout's books were very dirty books, since they were sold for such high prices to such queer people in such a place. He didn't understand that what Trout had in common with pornography wasn't sex but fantasies of an impossibly hospitable world."

 "I'm going to love these discarded Americans, even though they're useless and unattractive. That is going to be my work of art.

"The therapist, after a deeply upsetting investigation of normality at this time and place, was bound to conclude that a normal person, functioning well on the upper levels of a prosperous, industrialized society, can hardly hear his conscience at all."

"He would argue that the people he was trying to help were the same sorts of people who, in generations past, had cleared the forests, drained the swamps, built the bridges, people whose sons formed the backbone of the infantry in time of war--and so on. The people who leaned on Eliot regularly were a lot weaker than that--and dumber, too. When it came time for their sons to go into the Armed Forces, for instance, the sons were generally rejected as being mentally, morally, and physically undesirable."

"God damn it, you've got to be kind."

"Lila Buntline pedalled her bicycle through the muffled beauty of Pisquontuit's Utopian lanes. Every house she passed was a very expensive dream come true. The owners of the houses did not have to work at all. Neither would their children have to work, nor want for a thing, unless somebody revolted. Nobody seemed about to."

"I have since thanked her for the ocean, the moon, the stars in the sky, and the United States Constitution."