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: #35859 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.

Review
Likable, jaunty, lesser Vonnegut: the chatty autobiography of minor Abstract Expressionist painter Rabo Karabekian (a minor player in Breakfast of Champions) - interspersed with Rabo's present-day doings in his posh, art-treasure-filled manse in East Hampton, Long Island. Now 70-ish, a loner since the death of his super-rich, beloved second wife, Rabo hasn't painted for years. His potato-barn studio is locked, with his final, secret masterwork contained therein (a la Bluebeard); his house bursts with the Pollocks and Rothkos and such he acquired years ago for little or nothing; his own so-so oeuvre is nonexistent, having self-destructed - "thanks to unforeseen chemical reactions between the sizing of my canvases and the acrylic wall-paint and colored tapes I had applied to them." So Rabo is writing his memoirs, despite frequent interruptions from his new, self-invited house. guest: nosy, pushy, voluptuous Circe Berman, 43, widow of a Baltimore brain-surgeon, and author (under the "Polly Madison" pseudonym) of super-popular YA novels. And there are also occasional visits from neighbor-chum Paul Slazinger, a penniless, artistic novelist whose fragile psyche is hard-hit by the presence of crafty, nonartistic best-selling "Polly Madison." The memoirs themselves also feature this hoary art/commerce dichotomy. As an artistically gifted boy in 1920's California, child of Armenian immigrants (traumatized by the Turkish atrocities), Rabo writes fan letters to famous, super-realistic NYC illustrator Dan Gregory (ne Gregorian) - and wins, long-distance, the heart of Gregory's abused mistress Marilee Kemp. This leads to an apprenticeship with creepy Gregory (a graphic "taxidermist"), a brief affair with Marilee ("three hours of ideal lovemaking"), and a lifelong preoccupation with technique vs. "soul" in painting. Later on there's WW II service as a camouflage specialist (Rabo loses an eye), an unnerving reunion with war. scarred Marilee in Italy, and bohemian days with the young Abstract Expressionists - focusing on a fictional, self-destroying genius named Terry Kitchen. The book's final revelation - the nature of the secret painting locked up in the potato-barn - finds Vonnegut returning, without much force, to his favorite antiwar themes. Elsewhere, too, the familiar messages - pacifist, humanist, feminist - are worked in rather clumsily. But the curmudgeonly interplay with unstoppable snoop Circe/Polly has a bright comic edge reminiscent, mildly, of Berger and Bellow; the sprightly memoirs have just a light, airy shading of fable and exaggeration. So, though less arresting or Vivid or disturbing than prime Vonnegut (and a disappointment for readers expecting real development of the Abstract Expressionist angle), this is an easy-to-take mixture of comic diversion, low-key satire, and unabashed preaching. (Kirkus Reviews)

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.

Customer Reviews

One of his finest
I've read lots of Vonnegut and frankly I thought this was one of his lesser works. Boy, was I wrong. Here we have Vonnegut at his most focused on a long time, tearing off page after page that will make you laugh and stop and think at the same time. The story is basically the autobiography of an obscure artist character in Breakfast of Champions, but here he turns Rabo into someone you might think is real, so does his humor and pain cascade off the page. He bounces back and forth between his past and his present at his mansion where he just wants to be left alone, in the great Vonnegut tradition (and he doesn't need time travel this time out), comparing and contrasting the worst moments of his life with the best and trying to figure out what it all means. To me, this is one of Vonnegut's most human novels, his sense of satire and wit are still apparent and sharp but the entire story isn't devoted to Vonnegut making some barbed point about us and society as a whole, it's there but there's more time put into having get to know Rabo has someone who might live down the street from us. I devoured this book and found myself satisified, even the long anticipated secret of what lies in the potato barn was well worth the suspense (and it really is), this is the most fun I've had with a Vonnegut book in long time. Probably one of his more obscure works, it deserves to be read along with his other classics. It may not reach those peaks but it comes darn close.

Vonnegut comes through again
Again, Vonnegut has come up with a work of literature that leaves the reader (or at least me) breathless and hungry for more of his brilliant work. In all honesty, the book did lose something partway through, and right up until the end I would have rated it only about a 3-1/2. But the ending of this book (as with Mother Night and other Vonnegut novels) was worth the entire book. The secret in the potato barn was incredible; it was everything I'd thought it would be, and more.

A superb book, definitely worth reading. It also made me realize (since this was one of the first Vonnegut books I'd read) how interconnected his books really are; Rabo dates back to "Breakfast of Champions," where the reader is almost compelled to dislike him. However, during the course of this book, not only did I end up liking Rabo, I found myself cheering for him, and even understanding him. A must-read for any Vonnegut fan, and even for those who don't have a Vonnegut fetish like I do. Brilliant.

"There was a moment of silence, and then..."
Rabo Karabekian was first introduced in "Breakfast of Champions", a minor character in a surreal story. Here he gets the full treatment, and comes off as another one of those great curmudgeon characters. Only in the hands of Vonnegut, he becomes much more. He is crotchety, bitter, cynical, and several steps from senility. But he still has a wonderful memory for his past, and Vonnegut creates for him a fictional autobiography that's fascinating and endearing. And a laugh riot.

Rabo has one eye. Rabo was an artist of astounding technical talent, yet helped form the Abstract Expressionist movement (along with his friends the fictional Terry Kitchen and the very real Jackson Pollock). Rabo has seen the best talents of his generation succumb to suicide and self-destruction, yet he is still kicking and screaming at 71. Rabo (guided by Vonnegut) is in the process of pouring his life onto the page, with the encouragement of a mysterious woman who has moved into his home.

Vonnegut's greatest accomplishment in the book is the building up of the surprise ending (What the heck is in the barn?) to the point where something astounding should happen, and then drawing up a scene where something astounding happens. It all lives up to the hype, which is a tough thing to do. But I never doubted my man Kurt for a second. He is one of my favourite writers -- for his pointed humour and his deceptively simple prose -- and this is one of his best books. He has managed to create a commentary on the history of war, art, Europe, America, and literature in the twentieth century, by gently leading the reader through a guided tour of one man's life.