God Bless You Mr Rosewater

Zusatztext “[Vonnegut] at his wildest best.” — The New York Times Book Review “A brilliantly funny satire on almost everything.” —Conrad Aiken “[Vonnegut was] our finest black humorist. . . . We laugh in self-defense.” —The Atlantic Monthly Informationen zum Autor Kurt Vonnegut ’s 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” ( The New York Times ) 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. Klappentext "[Vonnegut] at his wildest best."-The New York Times Book ReviewEliot Rosewater-drunk, volunteer fireman, and President of the fabulously rich Rosewater Foundation-is about to attempt a noble experiment with human nature . . . with a little help from writer Kilgore Trout. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is Kurt Vonnegut's funniest satire, an etched-in-acid portrayal of the greed, hypocrisy, and follies of the flesh we are all heir to."A brilliantly funny satire on almost everything."-Conrad Aiken"[Vonnegut was] our finest black humorist. . . . We laugh in self-defense."-The Atlantic Monthly A sum of money is a leading character in this tale about people, just as a sum of honey might properly be a leading character in a tale about bees. The sum was $87,472,033.61 on June 1, 1964, to pick a day. That was the day it caught the soft eyes of a boy shyster named Norman Mushari. The income the interesting sum produced was $3,500,000 a year, nearly $10,000 a day--Sundays, too. The sum was made the core of a charitable and cultural foundation in 1947, when Norman Mushari was only six. Before that, it was the fourteenth largest family fortune in America, the Rosewater fortune. It was stashed into a foundation in order that tax-collectors and other predators not named Rosewater might be prevented from getting their hands on it. And the baroque masterpiece of legal folderol that was the charter of the Rosewater Foundation declared, in effect, that the presidency of the Foundation was to be inherited in the same manner as the British Crown. It was to be handed down throughout all eternity to the closest and oldest heirs of the Foundation's creator, Senator Lister Ames Rosewater of Indiana. Siblings of the President were to become officers of the Foundation upon reaching the age of twenty-one. All officers were officers for life, unless proved legally insane. They were free to compensate themselves for their services as lavishly as they pleased, but only from the Foundation's income. As required by law, the charter prohibited the Senator's heirs having anything to do with the management of the Foundation's capital. Caring for the capital became the responsibility of a corporation that was born simultaneously with the Foundation. It was called, straightforwardly enough, The Rosewater Corporation. Like almost all corporations, it was dedicated to prudence and profit, to balance sheets. Its employees were very well paid. They were cunning and happy and energetic on that account. Their main enterprise was the churning of stocks and bonds of other corporations. A minor activity was the management of a saw factory, a bowling alley, a motel, a bank, a brewery, extensive farms in Rosewater County, Indiana, and some coal mines in northern Kentucky. The Rosewater Corporation occupied two floors at 500 Fifth Avenue, in New York, and maintained small branch offices in London, Tokyo, Buenos Aires and Rosewater County. No member of the Rosewater Foundation could tell the Corporation what to do with the capital. Conversely, the Corporation was powerless to tell the Foundation what to do with the copious profits the Corporation made. These facts became known to young Norman Mushari when, upo...

Product details

• Authors: Kurt Vonnegut
• Publisher: Dial Books
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 08.09.1998
• EAN: 9780385333474
• ISBN: 978-0-385-33347-4
• No. of pages: 288
• Dimensions: 134 mm x 205 mm x 20 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature