Tag Archives: Daddy

Not Just Another Nepo Baby

Reading Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater reminded me of something profound I just made up. Only the delusional or masochistic read Vonnegut hoping to find an intricate plot or a deep analysis of a character’s psyche. If anyone reads Vonnegut these days, they do so for his moral clarity and barbed humor. To that I say sign me up, as long as I can still be masochistic in all the other aspects of my life. What’s that you say, Dear Reader? Ouch, that hurt! Say it again, daddy.

The protagonist and hero in this story is Eliot Rosewater, a trust fund baby who is a “drunkard, a Utopian dreamer, a tinhorn saint, and aimless fool.” He also owns and manages his family’s charity, which is worth millions. He tires of his privileged life in Manhattan and moves back to Rosewater, Indiana, a neglected rust belt community that’s also his ancestral home. He wants to become an artist. “I’m going to love these discarded Americans, even though they’re useless and unattractive. That is going to be my work of art.” Most artists have a God complex, but Eliot is a modern-day Christ figure, and just like Jesus he has a difficult and domineering father.

That father is a U.S. senator, who has “spent [his] life demanding that people blame themselves for their misfortunes.” He disapproves of Eliot and would desperately like a grandchild he could approve of. One that would take over the charity and be less charitable. There’s another person who’d like to do the same. He’s a lawyer and he believes he’s found a way to replace Eliot as the charity’s manager. He just has to prove Eliot is insane, and Eliot is doing a wonderful job of unintentionally helping the lawyer prove his case. So who will control the charity? The welfare of Rosewater’s destitute citizens depends on the answer.

In God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater Vonnegut skewers the purported legitimacy of inherited wealth. “I think it’s terrible the way people don’t share things in this country. I think it’s a heartless government that will let one baby be born owning a big piece of the country . . . and let another baby be born without owning anything.” Published in 1970, the story is as relevant now as ever. The novel is the perfect introduction to, or reminder of, Vonnegut’s simple grace, moral outrage, wicked humor, and deep intellect.

But let’s say you only read novels with intricate plots and complex psychological analyses, then read this instead. It’s the best summation of Vonnegut’s works, and it happens to have been written by that grand curmudgeon himself: “Pretend to be good always, and even God will be fooled.”

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Reading to My Son’s Class on Dead Poets Day

Mind you, most parents would pick
a stupid Seuss story and read it quick,
but those were things read long ago
when TVs had rabbit ears and winters snow.
Now kids understand the value of time
and their tastes for entertainment are far more refined.

Kids love poetry; they love to tell jokes,
and since this is about them, I've decided to do both.
So in honor of the day, I say
we must find a poet to put in a grave.

The kids look up, startled a bit,
but I assure them it's easy because poets aren't fit
so the odds of one winning a fight are slim
and I wink at the teacher as there's a bit of the poet in him.

I then recite The Walrus and the Buffalo
because kids love aged men who are full of woe,
which brings me next to Sylvia Plath
because that crazy bitch always makes me laugh.

Then I get an idea that's so sublime.
But would it be indulgent to read one of mine?
I could because I've written quite a few
and it would only be indulgent if I read them two.

Once I have finished speaking my lines
I realize fifty minutes wasn't enough time.
But the teacher jumps saying I must be on my way
and I leave to the acclaim only silence can convey.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief