Join Amazon Prime and get unlimited Free One-Day Delivery. Already a member? Sign in.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
27 used & new from £2.56
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Mother Night
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

Mother Night (Paperback)

by Kurt Vonnegut (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
Price: £5.99 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £2.00 (25%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

22 new from £3.01 5 used from £2.56
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover Order it used
Paperback Order it used
Mass Market Paperback (Reissue) 5 used & new from £5.50
Unknown Binding Order it used

Frequently Bought Together

Mother Night + Breakfast of Champions + Slaughterhouse 5, or The Children's Crusade - A Duty-dance with Death
Price For All Three: £15.57

Show availability and shipping details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions

by Kurt Vonnegut
4.5 out of 5 stars (16)  £4.79
Cat's Cradle (Penguin Modern Classics)

Cat's Cradle (Penguin Modern Classics)

by Kurt Vonnegut
4.1 out of 5 stars (14)  £6.99
Slaughterhouse 5, or The Children's Crusade - A Duty-dance with Death

Slaughterhouse 5, or The Children's Crusade - A Duty-dance with Death

by Kurt Vonnegut
4.5 out of 5 stars (40)  £4.79
Slapstick, or, Lonesome No More!

Slapstick, or, Lonesome No More!

by Kurt Vonnegut
4.8 out of 5 stars (5)  £5.99
The Sirens Of Titan (S.F. Masterworks)

The Sirens Of Titan (S.F. Masterworks)

by Kurt Vonnegut
4.4 out of 5 stars (18)  £5.49
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (21 May 1992)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099819309
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099819301
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 1.2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 7,438 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #3 in  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > V > Vonnegut, Kurt
    #3 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Vonnegut Jr., Kurt
    #44 in  Books > Fiction > Cult Authors

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Product Description
A companion novel to "Slaughterhouse 5", covering similar themes and drawing on the author's experiences as a prisoner of war in Dresden. A black satire, it tells of an American spy in Germany who becomes confused by his own methods as he sends his coded messages by using pro-Nazi radio broadcasts.

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Mother Night
59% buy the item featured on this page:
Mother Night 5.0 out of 5 stars (6)
£5.99
Breakfast of Champions
19% buy
Breakfast of Champions 4.5 out of 5 stars (16)
£4.79
Slaughterhouse 5, or The Children's Crusade - A Duty-dance with Death
11% buy
Slaughterhouse 5, or The Children's Crusade - A Duty-dance with Death 4.5 out of 5 stars (40)
£4.79
Cat's Cradle (Penguin Modern Classics)
6% buy
Cat's Cradle (Penguin Modern Classics) 4.1 out of 5 stars (14)
£6.99
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

6 Reviews
5 star:
 (6)
4 star:    (0)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A novel about serving evil too openly and good too secretly, 21 Aug 2003
By Daniel Jolley "darkgenius" (Shelby, North Carolina USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
To the best of my knowledge, there really is no other writer quite like Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Mother Night appears to be a rather straightforward, albeit quirky, novel at first glance, but as one delves down into the heart of Vonnegut's prose one finds grounds for contemplation of some of life's most serious issues. This novel is the first-hand account of Howard Campbell, Jr., a most remarkable character. Campbell is an American-born citizen who moved to Germany as a child and became the English-speaking radio mouthpiece for Nazi Germany during World War II. In the fifteen years since the end of the war, he has been living an almost invisible life in a New York City attic apartment. He misses his German wife Helga who died in the war, sometimes thinks about his pre-war life as a successful writer of plays and poems, and perhaps just waits for history to find him once again. As we begin the novel, he has been found and is writing this account from a jail cell in Israel, awaiting trial for his crimes against humanity. While he is reviled by almost everyone on earth as an American Nazi traitor, the truth is that he was actually an agent working for the American government during the war; this is a truth he cannot prove, though. Thus, in this 1961 novel, the hero is ostensibly a Nazi war criminal.

The primary moral of Mother Night, Vonnegut tells us in his introduction, is that "we are what we pretend to be" and should thus be pretty darned careful about what we are pretending to be (a secondary moral being the less enlightening statement "when you're dead, you're dead"). In the eyes of the entire world, Campbell is exactly what he pretended to be during the war, a traitorous Nazi purveyor of propaganda who mocked and demoralized allied troops as well as regular citizens. Internally, Campbell hardly knows what he is anymore; he claims no country, no political values, wanting only to live in a "nation of two" with his beloved wife Helga once again. A series of significant events forces Campbell out of the cocoon of his past fifteen years, and his thoughts and actions along the way provide big juicy morsels of food for thought: taking personal responsibility for one's actions, the harsh truths of war and peace, the sometimes vast differences between truth and fact, individual redemption before self and society, finding direction and a purpose in a world gone mad, etc. Vonnegut's scythe-like dark humor cuts deeper than mere satire, aiming directly at some of the darker sections of the human heart, areas which most individuals too often ignore or refuse to acknowledge. The gallows humor can be quite funny on the surface, but it is in actuality a scalpel which Vonnegut wields to open up the heart and soul of the reader for self-examination. Mother's Night, the title of which is taken from Goethe's Faust, is a relatively short but very powerful novel.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliantly dark postmodern satire, 11 Mar 2001
By A Customer
Vonnegut's metafictional memoir of Howard W Campbell Jr - American Nazi, American spy, American villain and American hero in one brilliantly blurs the line between right and wrong, history and fiction and fiction and reality through dark, biting, postmodern satire. Ranks easily alongside his 'Slaughterhouse 5' (I actually enjoyed it slightly more) as a treatise against war.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars My first Vonnegut experience, now I am eager for more, 24 Aug 2007
By Sebastian Fernandez (Tampa, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
For quite a while I had been planning on reading some of Vonnegut's books, but I kept forgetting and grabbing other things from my TBR list. But when a month back I saw the author interviewed in two of my favorite shows regarding his new book "A man without a country", I was once more enticed to follow-up on the idea of reading his works.

It seemed to me that "Mother Night" was a good place to start as any, even though most people's starting point would probably be "Slaughterhouse Five", which I will hopefully get around to reading soon. In "Mother Night", Vonnegut presents us with an extremely interesting setting, which contains a whole array of "gray situations", since Howard W. Campbell, Jr. tells his story as an American spy working in the German publicity machine during World War II. What makes the case even more interesting is that the narrator is not really clear regarding the events that developed during that period. Logically, one would expect Howard to say he hated what he had to do in order to support the US, but in fact we are faced with a scenario that allows for a lot more ambiguity than that. And even though, I have only read this novel by this author so far, I believe that this is one of his most salient characteristics.

Besides the interesting storyline, I was pleasantly impressed by the author's writing style, using short chapters that are somewhat linked in their main topics, but that are not completely linear. This reminds me of the work of one of my favorite Latin American authors, Eduardo Galeano, who uses a similar approach to writing. If you are interested in reading about the history Latin America and like Vonnegut's style, I highly recommend Galeano's non-fiction book "The Open Veins of Latin America".

Coming back to Vonnegut, I recommend "Mother Night" to all those that enjoy stories in which ethics and the concept of what is wrong and what is right play a central role. As to me, I am already looking forward to my next Vonnegut read.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Saddening tale of scapetgoating
This book is a wonderfully moving story of double-crossing and betrayl. The story is excellent for being thought provoking. Read more
Published on 28 Sep 2001

5.0 out of 5 stars Could be the funniest book Vonnegut has ever written
However, you should periodically remind yourself by repeating out loud, "this is funny." An American expatriot who is trapped in Berlin by the war. Read more
Published on 18 Feb 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars An important novel
Already in his foreword, the author offers us trenchant insights into the human soul. He summarizes the book thusly: "We are what we appear to be, and we must therefore ne... Read more
Published on 24 Nov 1999

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
This product's forum (0 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
  No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Feedback

Health & Beauty at Amazon.co.uk

Elemis Resurface and Renew Skin Care Gift Set of 4 Products
From soap to shavers, massagers to mascara, stock up on your daily essentials or truly pamper yourself.

›Discover Health & Beauty

  

More From Kurt Vonnegut

Breakfast of Champions

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

'Outrageous, witty, thought-provoking, unputdownable, scintillating... Read more
£7.99 £4.79

 

Up to 50% off Dental Care

Braun Oral-B Professional Care 6000 Rechargeable Toothbrush - Pack of 2
Put a sparkle in your smile with up to 50% off selected Oral-B and Philips rechargeable toothbrushes.

›Up to 50% off power toothbrushes

  

Treat Someone

Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificates--available in any amount from £5 to £500 With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

›Learn more about Gift Certificates

  
Ad

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery and Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.
Continue Shopping: Top Sellers
The Girl Who Played with Fire
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
4.5 out of 5 stars (75)£3.86
 Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga)
Breaking Dawn (Twilight Saga) by Stephenie Meyer
4.1 out of 5 stars (464)£6.49
 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
4.1 out of 5 stars (165)£3.99
 The Host
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
4.2 out of 5 stars (83)£3.86

amazon.co.uk Amazon Home
International Sites:  United States  |  Germany  |  France  |  Japan  |  Canada  |  China
Business Programs: Sell on Amazon  |  Fulfilment by Amazon  |  Join Associates  |  Join Advantage
Customer Service  |  Help  |  View Basket  |  Your Account
About Amazon.co.uk  |  Careers at Amazon
Conditions of Use & Sale |  Privacy Notice  © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates