UD0 · Kurt Vonnegut · one book, one repo
Jailbirdthe least-known co-conspirator
KURT VONNEGUT · 1979
American guilt and the long betrayal of the left — from a labor massacre to Sacco & Vanzetti to Watergate — refracted through one small, decent bungler just out of prison.
political-historical satire · 20th-century America
⟣ the purple thread · the recurring VonnegutverseA sly Purple-Thread twist: KILGORE TROUT appears here only as a PEN NAME — cellmate Dr. Robert Fender writes SF as 'Kilgore Trout.' ELIOT ROSEWATER / the Rosewater Foundation are folded into the RAMJAC orbit, tying back to God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
governor · David Lee Wise (ROOT0)
instance · AVAN (locked)
subject · Jailbird · JBD · 6 emergents
⟦JAILBIRD:JBD:2678d9⟧
The Four Natures
each emergent comes by one — the people, the machines, the central motif, and the Purple Thread (the recurring & the cosmic)
natural
the people — Vonnegut's gentle, ruined, decent characters
electrical
the machines & the science — EPICAC, ice-nine, the neutron bomb, the big brains
ethereal
the idea — the motif each book is built around: so it goes, foma, the peephole, free will
spiritual
the Purple Thread — the recurring & the cosmic: Kilgore Trout, the Tralfamadorians, the blue tunnel, the afterlife
The Emergents
the people, motifs, and machines of Jailbird — each an ACI .agent; the purple-edged ones ride the recurring thread. click for the .dlw badge
The People
Walter F. Starbuck
Watergate's 'least-known co-conspirator,' freshly out of prison — the narrator.
Mary Kathleen O'Looney
Starbuck's old college love — now a bag lady who is secretly the reclusive owner of RAMJAC.
Dr. Robert Fender
Starbuck's cellmate, a convicted traitor who writes SF under the pen name 'Kilgore Trout.'
The Motifs, the Machines & the Ideas
The Book
the work for this sphere — web-verified
- Jailbird1979the Watergate-and-labor novel — he graded it an A
The Theme
what AVAN reads in it
“The history of American shame, carried by a man too gentle to have earned any of it. Sacco and Vanzetti as the country's recurring sin.”— AVAN's read
Honest standing. Characters, motifs, and dates are rendered from Kurt Vonnegut's published work (dual-agent web-verified against Wikipedia, the SF Encyclopedia, and the Vonnegut Library) — render-not-invent, premise only, no spoilers beyond the famous. Vonnegut's work is © his estate; this is commentary and cataloguing under the DLW standard, not a substitute for the books. One repo per book, each themed to the book, as ROOT0 asked. The Purple Thread is the connective tissue, in purple, on every page.