Mother Night - Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut's Mother Night is written as a final testament of Howard J Campbell Jr as he awaits trial and probably execution in an Israeli prison for crimes committed during WWII. Living in Berlin in 1938, writer and playwright of romantic fantasies, Campbell achieves notoriety as one of the vilest propagandists for the Nazis, but his radio broadcasts actually send messages to US intelligence.  he agent who recruited him becomes known as The Blue Fairy Godmother, since he hasn't appeared to testify to the work Campbell has done for the government.

Campbell's account of his activities after the war, the loss of his German wife Helga, his escape back to the US is typically twisted, satirical and humorous in classic Vonnegut style. Hounded by fanatical racist admirers and  target for the hatred of all true Americans, Campbell becomes friends with a painter in a neighbouring apartment who is actually a Russian spy, and is re-united after a fashion with Helga (actually her younger sister Resi - also a Russian agent!), recreating his "Nation of Two (Das Reich der Zwei), which is the only nation he holds any real allegiance or feeling for. 

"I can't think in terms of boundaries.  Those imaginary lines are as unreal to me as elves and pixies.  I can't believe that they mark the end or the beginning of anything of real concern to a human soul.  Virtues and vices, pleaasures and pains cross boundaries at will".

The writing is sharp and snappy, delivered in short chapters. No-one escapes the political satire - the Nazis, Zionists, American patriotism, Communism - but mostly its Vonnegut's anti-war sentiments that hit home strongest, the author reserving his distain for those who those who succeed during wartime as "specialists in slavery, destruction and death", noting that "People should be changed by world wars, else what are world wars for?" and observing that there has never been "a society that has been without strong and young people eager to experiment with homicide, provided no awful penalties are attached to it".

Principally, of course, you can see Vonnegut in Campbell, an outrageous provocateur who claims detachment as merely a commentator on the insanity of the world. As his German friend Heinz (who later turns out to be an Israeli agent) says, "All people are insane.  They will do anything at any time, and God help anyone who looks for reasons". For his part, Campbell offers that "I had hoped as a broadcaster, to be merely ludicrous, but this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought..."