Product Description

An old man recounts his past to a voluptuous widow, revealing man's compulsion to create and destroy what he loves.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20451 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-08
• Released on: 1998-09-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

From Library Journal
Vonnegut rounds up several familiar themes and character types for his 13th novel: genocide, the surreality of the modern world, fluid interplay of the past and present, and the less-than-heroic figure taking center stage to tell his story. Here he elevates to narrator a minor character from Breakfast of Champions , wounded World War II veteran and abstract painter Rabo Karabekian. At the urging of enchantress-as-bully Circe Berman, Karabekian writes his "hoax autobiography." Vonnegut uses the tale to satirize art movements and the art-as-investment mind-set and to explore the shifting shape of reality. Although not among his best novels, Bluebeard is a good one and features liberal doses of his off-balance humor. Recommended. A.J. Wright, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Inside Flap
An old man recounts his past to a voluptuous widow, revealing man's compulsion to create and destroy what he loves.

About the Author
Kurt Vonnegut was a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He was, as Graham Greene declared, "one of the best living American writers.” Mr. Vonnegut passed away in April 2007.

Customer Reviews

The Vonnegut YOU Should Like
Someone I know said "Bluebeard" was the Vonnegut YOU (and by YOU he meant everyone) didn't like. He couldn't have been more wrong. A lot of people say a book really spoke to them, mostly so they can sound smart, but this is one of those rare occasions where I can truly say this book spoke to me. Though it was written over twenty years ago it felt like it was written for me right this moment. (I've mentioned before in other reviews how important timing is in these things. See "On the Road" and "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.")



Bluebeard is the story of Rabo Karabekian and it follows the nonlinear storytelling found in other Vonnegut novels like his classic "Slaughterhouse Five." Starting in the present of 1987, Rabo is an old man on Long Island who lives alone in a mansion after his wife died. A younger widow named Circe Berman (who writes controversial young adult books under the handle Polly Madison) appears on Rabo's private beach one day and soon takes up residence in Rabo's house. She convinces him to write his autobiography.



His autobiography begins in California in the late `20s. The son of Turkish Armenians who fled the slaughter of their village, Rabo trains to be a cobbler like his father but discovers he has a talent for drawing. His mother convinces him to write to a famous Russian Armenian named Dan Gregory who's become a famous artist known for his realistic illustrations. (His popularity at that time make him kind of similar to Norman Rockwell, except he's a jerk. Maybe Rockwell was a jerk too. I have no idea.) Gregory's wife Marilee takes notice of Rabo's talent and eventually brings him to Gregory's home in New York. Rabo rides out the Depression under Gregory's mean-spirited teachings, falling in love with Marilee and "Modern Art" (Picasso and his ilk) at the same time.



In time Rabo becomes a lesser-known member of the modern art movement in the `40s and `50s, hanging out with Jackson Pollack and Terry Kitchen and other well-known people who invariably commit suicide. Worse yet, many of Rabo's paintings are destroyed by a very shoddy product so that he seems doomed to be completely forgotten. That is except for a very special item in his former studio, a potato barn on the grounds of his mansion.



For me, as something approximating an artist of the written word, much of Rabo's problems were similar to ones I've faced. I'm certain many artists whether they work with a canvas or clay or marble or paper or words or what have you have felt the frustration and despair at the world failing to take notice of our "gift." But the lesson for any artistic type I gleaned from Rabo's story follows the adage of "Do what you love." Or the more accurate way to put it might be to say, "Do what you care about for the people you care about."



That said, I think this is a great book to read if you're an artist of any sort. If you're not, then you'll probably still be entertained by Vonnegut's witty prose, but you won't get as much out of the reading. You're probably the YOU the person I knew was thinking about.



That is all.

Vonnegut's Funniest
One of my favorite by Vonnegut because he lightens up...a little. The King of Cynicism and Glumness relaxes a little and gives the faux autobiography of a failed modernist painting. Along the way, Vonnegut sends up the modern art movement and the commercialization of creativity and the arbitrary valuation of everything. Not nearly as harsh or bleak as most of his work and it ends with on very sweet uplifting note. Since it is atypical of Vonnegut, read this after you've read Slaughterhouse 5, Cat's Cradle and one or two others.

Bluebeard
I am a fan of Vonnegut. This novel brought wonderful feelings of happiness, connection, desire to participate, be included into the circle of friendship, fragile and pure world of poor bohemian artists. I thing this book is the best book that he wrote. BLUEBEARD is a ready, well-defined movie scenario or a play for the theater. The characters touched my heart. I love them all, especially, Rabo. In short, when I feel down or sad I take Vonnegut's BLUEBEARD and read it. My spirit rises from sadness to the joyful non-reality of Rabo's clear, captivating world of humanity and art of living.