This is the eleventh book in Rachel’s Suggested Vonnegut Reading Order. I am reading it twelfth. For an explanation of that logic, read my Mother Night reaction blog.

I confess to an almost total indifference regarding this latest in my long line of Vonnegut novels. I can’t summon up any particular love for it, but neither can I manage to hate it. Cerebrally, I appreciate what it does as a work of literature, but I can’t emotionally engage with the story.

In other words: meh.

But I promised you all a review, and here it is! Behold, Jailbird: the only one of Vonnegut’s later novels he liked enough to give an A (although he hadn’t written all his novels at the time of grading). That’s definitely a stronger endorsement than mine. And there is some neat stuff in here. But the whole thing isn’t neat stuff.

So. Here we go. Our main man is named Walter F. Starbuck, and though his story doesn’t start in jail, his narrative does. He was jailed for his involvement in a scandal you may have heard of. It’s called “Watergate.” After a few years in prison, he is released and heads off to New York, where he visits some of his old haunts from the days before his attempt at public service. He discovers what most of us do: that those places change as much as, or more than, we ourselves do. He also runs in with a few people he used to know. But more on that later.

The front cover of the edition of Jailbird it has been my pleasure to peruse features a quote from People magazine: “He [Vonnegut] has never been more satirically on target . . . Nothing is spared.” That’s accurate. Vonnegut satirizes everything he mentions: the American education system (all those Ivy League degrees seem to be a ticket to the slammer), treatment of the poor and immigrants (the story is anchored by the story of a fictitious strike in Cuyahoga, which influenced Walter’s life before it even began, and the story of a true execution of Italian immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti), the government (no explanation necessary). Vonnegut is always satirical – it’s the one kind of writer everyone can agree he is – but this book is particularly so.

That brings me to what I think made me so apathetic about this novel: it develops a bit of a Monty Python complex, except it’s depressing rather than funny. I enjoy Monty Python for ten- or fifteen-minute stretches, but after a whole film they’re kind of overstaying their welcome. They’re funny, I’m not contesting that, but when every line is exactly the same kind of funny, my brain wishes for something else to chew on. Maybe some character development. Or a few minutes of plot.

Jailbird felt like that to me. It was insightful and sardonic, two good qualities of a work of literature. But 70 percent of it seemed like the same kind of insightful and sardonic to me, which is why I failed to connect with most of it. You know when you’re driving home sometimes and your brain doesn’t store the memory because it’s just like the nine million other times you’ve driven home, so you end up in your driveway with no memory of having physically driven there? I did that a few times with this book. Like whoa, how’d I end up on page 250?

Of course, there’s always that other 30 percent. One aspect of Jailbird that I really liked was its portrayal of its female characters. Walter says he loved four women in his lifetime, and through the course of the novel, we meet them all, whether it be through a flashback, in real time, or both. Walter’s mother, the first of the four women, doesn’t really come into her own in the novel (neither does his father, if we’re being fair), but the other three get important roles. They’re not stereotypical – not saints, or ballsy warrior princesses, or smoking-hot nerds. They, like the male characters, get to be something resembling people. Are they the best women Vonnegut’s ever written? No. But they’re no more caricatured or ridiculous than any of the male characters, which to me is progress.

So all in all, I guess I didn’t hate this book. I didn’t love it, either, but that’s not always possible. As Vonnegut himself said, loving everything and everybody isn’t the easiest thing to do, so why not make respect the baseline? I respect Jailbird, and that’ll just have to do.

Emma’s Overall Reaction: Still meh. But meh with moxie. I respect that.

If you like Monty Python and somewhat depressing satire, or if you’re otherwise intrigued by this novel, follow this link to buy it.