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Jailbird
 
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Jailbird (Paperback)

by Kurt Vonnegut (Author)
4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)

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Product Details

Product Description

Ingram

A master of contemporary American literature, Vonnegut has authored 18 highly acclaimed books and dozens of short stories and essays. This wry tale follows bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentiary as Watergate's least known co-conspirator. Reissue. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


From the Back Cover

"He is our strongest writer . . . the most stubbornly imaginative." -- John Irving, author of The Cider House Rules.

"A gem. . . a mature, imaginative novel-possibly the best he has written. . . Jailbird is a guided tour de force of America. Take it!" -- Playboy --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

25 Reviews
5 star:
 (10)
4 star:
 (9)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.2 out of 5 stars (25 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most helpful customer reviews

 
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice people, great service!, Jul 23 2009
By C. Gardner (Ottawa, Ontario) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Jailbird: A Novel (Paperback)
Product arrived on time, condition exactly as described. Plus, I corresponded with the seller, and he or she seems like a really good person.
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4.0 out of 5 stars Funny fiction, April 5 2004
By Kris (Oxnard, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: JAILBIRD (Mass Market Paperback)
This book may make you laugh out loud. It did me, several times. Like when Walter's date, Sarah, guffaws at his boyish attempt to kiss her, "braying like she was at a Marx brothers' movie." Or something.

Walter F. Starbuck's striking characteristic, to me, is his humility. He seems to have no hidden pretenses about his role in the world, never forgets his humble origins, never takes others for granted or assumes he's superior to them. He seems generally to assume he's inferior. Yes, he did make some mistakes, but they don't seem gargantuan (for example, he "ratted" on a one-time friend, mentioning during an investigative hearing that his friend had once been a member of the Communist party).

The narrative just keeps rolling until about the end, when poor Mrs. Jack Graham, Walter's first sexual experience, dies as a fantastically wealthy bag lady, in her tennis shoes, as it were, filled with a desultory 4,000 one dollar bills and her last will and testament (to distribute her corporate empire to the American people). The ending just seems slightly abrupt.

But one important piece of philosophical advice may have been given by Walter, when he notes that, no matter what course he had taken in his life, it really wouldn't make any difference in a world (which is) just a small iota in an infinitely expanding universe. Except to us? Diximus.

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3.0 out of 5 stars 3 and 1/2 Stars - Not up to his usual standard, Jul 27 2002
By VoodooLord7 (Oklahoma, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Jailbird: A Novel (Paperback)
Although Vonnegut's deceptively simple prose and unyielding cynical bent are just as ever-present and by turns caustically, heart-piercingly dead accurate and hilarous, this book ends up falling short of the high standard that Vonnegut had set for himself with masterpieces like The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, and Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut here has created a protagonist who gets himself somehow involved in pretty much all of the major American historical events from the Great Depression through the Watergate scandal... He accomplishes this with a neat (and sometimes confusing) interweaving of fact and fiction: dropping fictional characters and institutions into real, factual events -... The author's observations are as cynical and misanthropic as ever (and maybe even a little more depressing than normal - as we realize in the end that the protagonist, ruined as he is, is basically a decent man), but it is lacking that Great Underlying Moral that is the heart and backbone of every great Vonnegut novel. He attempts to satarize all of these major events in one book, and ends up doing none of them particularly well - much the same thing that happens in another one of his lesser books, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Still, this IS a Vonnegut, so it can't be all that bad - and it is worth reading if you're a major fan of the author. If you're a Vonnegut fan, you'll want to read this, eventually; if you're a neophyte, you should read some of his other, better books first.
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful look at how silly the idea of money is
Once again, Vonnegut the master satirist has put into words what everyone knows but just can't express. Read more
Published on May 21 2002

3.0 out of 5 stars Not my favorite Vonnegut book
This was the third Vonnegut Book I read, and was definitly my least favorite. I found the story of Starbuck to be somewhat dull and dry at the beginning. Read more
Published on May 19 2002 by S. Bowman

3.0 out of 5 stars Pretty Good.
An enjoyable book though confusing when fiction is mixed with historical characters. It's always challenging and entertaining to figure out where in time you've been taken... Read more
Published on Mar 23 2002

3.0 out of 5 stars Not up to his usual standard
Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for this one. Vonnegut's deceptively simple prose was up to snuff and I was frequently amused by a well-turned phrase or unexpected... Read more
Published on Oct 29 2001 by David Bonesteel

4.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put it down.
Every time I read a Kurt Vonnegut novel, I wonder why I havent read all of his works. This is a brilliant, hilarious novel rich with cynicism and irony. Read more
Published on Jun 1 2001 by akotcha

3.0 out of 5 stars Not his best work.
This is my least favorite Vonnegut of the six or seven I've read. It takes a while for things to get started, and even then they never get on a roll. Read more
Published on April 28 2001 by ostawookiee

5.0 out of 5 stars Rich With Irony
Vonnegut has a way of combining Orwell's eye with Updike's wit, and the sum is greater still, than the parts. Read more
Published on Mar 18 2001 by Tom

4.0 out of 5 stars Uniquely Ironic
Jailbird is a truly unique and enjoyable novel. It is the story of Walter F. Starbuck, a man whose life was intertwined through Harvard, the Great Depression, communism, World... Read more
Published on Feb 21 2001 by George

4.0 out of 5 stars a comic Kafka for the end of the century
I enjoyed the 3 Kurt Vonnegut works I've read so far. This one cruises and rollicks along as well as any. Read more
Published on Dec 25 2000 by Marco Polo

4.0 out of 5 stars actually 4 1/2
This was the first vonnegut book I've read and it threw me quite a curveball. If you're not use to reading a vonnegut book it takes a different mindset. Read more
Published on Aug 9 2000 by Keith Dougherty

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