Bluebeard, the Autobiography of Rabo Karabekian (1916–1988)
Details
Details
Here again, Vonnegut unpacks ideas and characters from Breakfast of Champions. This time, it's Rabo Karabekian, the fictional artist who represented everything beautiful in 'one vertical, unwavering band of light". The novel is also unique in Vonnegut's ouevre up until this point for reasons I won't spoil :)
Quote:
“All right - I'll tell you what you did for me: you went for happy, silly, beautiful walks with me.”
Description
"I shall not divulge the contents of the shed, but will suggest that what is in there is thematically linked to one of Mr. Vonnegut's favorite and perhaps obsessive notions. That is the idea, following such overwhelming 20th-century horrors and atrocities as Hiroshima, the Holocaust and the Dresden raid - this last, we remember, was witnessed and survived by the author from his underground vantage point in the German slaughterhouse - that we are all war prisoners, all targets leading forfeited lives, whether we know it or not, and whether or not the particular bomb or bullet with our name on it has yet been sent hurtling toward us." -NYT Book Review