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God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Cover of first edition (Hardcover) |
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| Author | Kurt Vonnegut |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Dell |
| Publication date | 1965 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine is a novel written by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and published in 1965. The plot focuses on Eliot Rosewater, the primary trustee of the philanthropic Rosewater Foundation whom one of the family lawyers, Norman Mushari, is attempting to have declared insane to enable a more distant relative, Fred Rosewater, an insurance salesman from Rhode Island, to gain control.
Founded originally to help Rosewater descendents avoid paying taxes on the family estate by Eliot's father, a senator in Rosewater County, Indiana, the Rosewater Foundation is operated by a large legal firm in New York and provides an annual pension of $3 million to Eliot. Eliot had been seen as restless, early on trying all the typical things that philanthropists do to help the poor, but he eventually sets out across America, going from small town to small town before landing in the city of Rosewater, Indiana and setting up shop. He calls Rosewater home after becoming a volunteer firefighter in numerous cities across the U.S. This fact, along with his drunkeness, his generous relationship with the poor in Rosewater, and his odd relationship with his French wife make him appear a bit crazy. A conniving lawyer by the name of Mushari has set out to prove him insane so he can collect a portion of the Rosewater fortune for himself during the transfer of it to the unwitting distant cousins in Rhode Island.
The novel is told mostly through a collection of short stories dealing with Eliot's interactions with the citizens of Rosewater County. The antagonist' tale, Mushari's, is told in a similar short essay fashion, usually with the last sentence serving as a punch line. These stories usually reveal different hypocrisies of mankind in a very dark and humorous fashion.
In this novel, Kilgore Trout, the ever-present science fiction writer considered to be Vonnegut's alter-ego, makes an appearance and charms many rich and affluent people including Eliot's father at the end of the novel. Diana Moon Glampers, the handicapper general of the short story Harrison Bergeron, makes an appearance despite the great difference in time frames between Eliot's story and Harrison's.
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| Novels | 1950s: Player Piano (1952) • The Sirens of Titan (1959) 1960s: Mother Night (1961) • Cat's Cradle (1963) • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) • Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) 1970s: Breakfast of Champions (1973) • Slapstick (1976) • Jailbird (1979) 1980s: Deadeye Dick (1982) • Galápagos (1985) • Bluebeard (1987) 1990s: Hocus Pocus (1990) • Timequake (1997) |
| Story collections | Canary in a Cathouse (1961) • Welcome to the Monkey House (1968) • Bagombo Snuff Box (1999) |
| Collected essays | Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons (1974) • Palm Sunday (1981) • Fates Worse than Death (1990) • God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999) • A Man Without a Country (2005) |
| Scripts | Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970) • Between Time and Timbuktu (1972) • Make Up Your Mind (1993) • Miss Temptation (1993) • L'Histoire du Soldat (1993) |
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Adaptations
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| Stage | Welcome to the Monkey House (1970, 1974) • Sirens of Titan (1974) • Cat's Cradle (1976) • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1979) • Breakfast of Champions (1984) • Requiem (Stone, Time, and Elements: A Humanist Requiem) (1988) • Slaughterhouse-Five (1996) |
| Film | Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971) • Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) • Next Door (1975) • Slapstick of Another Kind (1982) • Mother Night (1996) • Breakfast of Champions (1999) |
| Television | Displaced Person (1958, 1985) • Between Time and Timbuktu (1972) • EPICAC (1974, 1992) • Who Am I This Time? (1982) • All the King's Horses (1991) • Next Door (1991) • The Euphio Question (1991) • Fortitude (1992) • The Foster Portfolio (1992) • More Stately Mansions (1992) • Harrison Bergeron (1995) |
