Excerpted from the Editor's Note in Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut,
' The title of the book is Campbell’s. It is taken from a speech by Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust.
As translated by Carlyle F. MacIntyre (New Directions, 1941), the speech is this:
"I am a part of the part that at first was all, part of the darkness that gave birth to light, that supercilious light which now disputes with Mother Night her ancient rank and space, and yet can not succeed; no matter how it struggles, it sticks to matter and can’t get free. Light flows from substance, makes it beautiful; solids can check its path, so I hope it won’t be long till light and the world’s stuff are destroyed together."
The dedication of the book is Campbell’s too. Of the dedication, Campbell wrote this in a chapter he later discarded:
"Before seeing what sort of a book I was going to have here, I wrote the dedication—'To Mata Hari.' She whored in the interest of espionage, and so did I.
Now that I’ve seen some of the book, I would prefer to dedicate it to someone less exotic, less fantastic, more contemporary—less of a creature of silent film.
I would prefer to dedicate it to one familiar person, male or female, widely known to have done evil while saying to himself, 'A very good me, the real me, a me made in heaven, is hidden deep inside.'
I can think of many examples, could rattle them off after the fashion of a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song. But there is no single name to which I might aptly dedicate this book— unless it would be my own.
Let me honor myself in that fashion, then:
This book is rededicated to Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a man who served evil too openly and good too secretly, the crime of his times."
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. '
t.me/DarkMatterMemo/1508
' The title of the book is Campbell’s. It is taken from a speech by Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust.
As translated by Carlyle F. MacIntyre (New Directions, 1941), the speech is this:
"I am a part of the part that at first was all, part of the darkness that gave birth to light, that supercilious light which now disputes with Mother Night her ancient rank and space, and yet can not succeed; no matter how it struggles, it sticks to matter and can’t get free. Light flows from substance, makes it beautiful; solids can check its path, so I hope it won’t be long till light and the world’s stuff are destroyed together."
The dedication of the book is Campbell’s too. Of the dedication, Campbell wrote this in a chapter he later discarded:
"Before seeing what sort of a book I was going to have here, I wrote the dedication—'To Mata Hari.' She whored in the interest of espionage, and so did I.
Now that I’ve seen some of the book, I would prefer to dedicate it to someone less exotic, less fantastic, more contemporary—less of a creature of silent film.
I would prefer to dedicate it to one familiar person, male or female, widely known to have done evil while saying to himself, 'A very good me, the real me, a me made in heaven, is hidden deep inside.'
I can think of many examples, could rattle them off after the fashion of a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song. But there is no single name to which I might aptly dedicate this book— unless it would be my own.
Let me honor myself in that fashion, then:
This book is rededicated to Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a man who served evil too openly and good too secretly, the crime of his times."
KURT VONNEGUT, JR. '
t.me/DarkMatterMemo/1508