The perversity of that construction, of that thinking, incurs a cost that compounds as the story continues after the end of the war. He refers to their marriage as a “nation of two,” but in German he ominously calls it “ das Reich der Zwei.” No matter what I was really, no matter what I really meant, uncritical love was what I needed-and my Helga was the angel who gave it to me.” Campbell secretly fights the Nazis, but sees his wife’s acceptance of his false front as a sign of the sincerity of her love. “Helga believed I meant the things I said. No one knows of his secret role, not even his German wife, Helga. Their meaning is opaque to him, just as he is to others. During anti-Semitic tirades, Howard transmits coded messages for Allied intelligence, each slipped to him by an unknown agent. A covert operative for the United States contacts him and convinces him to remain and go on the radio as a voice of Nazi propaganda. Vonnegut’s protagonist, Campbell, is an American who finds himself in Germany as Hitler takes power. Reading through it again, though, I’ve changed my mind. Campbell’s judgment of himself stayed with me because it is the truth of the novel, packed into what is outwardly a story of secret resistance, comic misunderstandings, and the promise of rescue and redemption. When I opened the book again to the last page, twenty years after first reading it, I was disappointed that my memory was wrong. Four short paragraphs follow, in which Vonnegut manages to squeeze in a complaint about Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas.” The actual closing sentence: “ Auf wiedersehen?” I remembered that as the last line of Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, Mother Night. Campbell, Jr., for crimes against himself.” “I think that tonight is the night I will hang Howard W. Homes, Michael Cunningham, Jeffrey Eugenides, and others will speak and read on the ideals of democracy. Andrew Solomon, president of NBCC Sandrof-award winning PEN American Center and Trustee Masha Gessen will host American Poets Laureate Robert Pinsky and Rita Dove will share original “inaugural” poems written for the occasion and dozens of writers and artists including Laurie Anderson, Mary Karr, A.M. ( NBCC Reads from previous years here.) We're posting these in advance of the #WritersResist events to be held on January 15–Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday– throughout the country, including an event on the steps of the New York Public Library. What's your favorite work of resistance literature? That's the question that launches this year's NBCC Reads series, which draws upon the bookish passions of NBCC members and honorees at this time of cultural shift.
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