Mother Night
I quite enjoyed this book. I was a little worried when Laura posted her review so quickly, but then it turned out that I was able to finish the book within 24 hours as well.
It reads quite easily. The print is large and the chapters are short (sometimes only two pages). I remember reading Goosebumps and Fear Street when I was in Junior High, and I read those just about as fast as I read this.
Of course, Vonnegut is far superior to R.L. Stine. ;)
The moral of this book is that we are who we pretend to be. But I think we are probably all pretending, at least on some level. Why keep that genuine person hidden? To protect ourselves? To accomplish a goal? What if we go our whole lives without anyone ever knowing us? Or worse yet, without ever knowing ourselves?
And hey look, there's a movie version. What do you think of the casting?
Comments
just a thought at 11:30 at night haha
Of course, most of the time the pretending isn't conscious, so maybe that fits in with your idea. There is definitely a feeling, at least in my experience, of different actions that felt to me more like my self, and others that feel like they're coming from a more empty place.
I think the act of pretending ends up blocking us from who we are inside. Even the man who becomes the liar, the cheat, and the performer doesn't lose that inner being permanently. It just gets buried w/ layers and layers of lies and protective walls. And if my some miracle or act of violence those lies are exposed and the walls are knocked down, that man has a chance to become more genuine and real, and to make the outside match the buried self.
Perhaps the more interesting question is why we pretend at all?