God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

Going back to the list of writers I included in my recent time travel adventures but who are also writers of non-time travel novels, I come to Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Having read Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five during my time travel phase, this book was the obvious choice. Two characters from Slaughterhouse-Five - Kilgore Trout and Eliot Rosewater - made their first appearance in the 1965 novel.

I had been a Kurt Vonnegut fan in my teen years and had, of course read God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater ages and ages ago. Like all of the Vonnegut novels I read in my teen years, most of the Rosewater book had faded from my memory. Pretty much the only thing I can recall from that early reading is the mentioning of Kilgore Trout's paperback, Venus on the Half-Shell . In later years (1974) Philip José Farmer wrote a novel of the same name - using the pseudonym Kilgore Trout. There was a bit of a kerfuffle over Farmer's book. Vonnegut reluctantly gave permission to Farmer to write the book, although later Vonnegut was angry over a poorly written article concerning Farmer's getting Vonnegut's permission. The article was probably as badly written as the previous sentence.

As a side note - when I read Venus on the Half-Shell in 1975, I was like many who mistakenly assumed that the book was Vonnegut's own creation.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is humorous - though hardly a knee slapper. I appreciate Vonnegut's writing now with a bit of nostalgia. I don't know, however, if I'd like Vonnegut nearly as much if I were only now discovering his work.