How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The only other cutting I have done is in Chapter Twenty-three, which is pornographic in the original. I would have considered myself honor-bound to present that chapter unbowdlerized, were it not for Campbell's request, right in the body of the text, that some editor perform the emasculation. (Editor's Note.10)
We're prepped early on—even before the story starts—to expect kissy times…but not too much, since Vonnegut has to insert ellipses at Campbell's request when things go beyond PG-13. Since Vonnegut is the real author, of course, he could totally have just written in the racy bits, but he wants to paint Campbell in a specific—maybe uptight, maybe self-conscious—light.
This moment is kind of a funny, meta tip-off that sex is going to be a thing in the novel, but Campbell doesn't need to make it "a thing", because he's calm, cool, and collected. Nothing to see here. No pornos or anything.
Quote #2
And, with nothing in my life making sense but love, what a student of geography I was! What a map I could draw for a tourist a micron high, a sub microscopic Wandervögel bicycling between a mole and a curly golden hair on either side of my Helga's belly button. If this image is in bad taste, God help me. Everybody is supposed to play games for mental health. I have simply described the game, an adult interpretation of 'This-Little-Piggy' that was ours. (10.15)
This is probably the steamiest moment we get in the novel. It's totally a lovers-chilling-in-a-garden-doing-what-lovers-do kind of scene. It's like: See. We had sex for reals because I know all about my wife's belly button. We get it, guy. You're all studied up on your anatomy exam.
Probably the most telling bit here is that sex-play was a key part in keeping Campbell mentally healthy. Helga and Campbell escaped into each other during the war, and that's what kept them going.
Quote #3
'All you need in this world to get writing again, writing better than ever before, is a woman.'
'A what?' I said. 'A woman,' he said. 'Where did you get this peculiar idea—' I said, 'from eating oysters? If you'll get one, I'll get one,' I said. 'How's that?' (12.15-18)
According to Kraft, sexual stimulation will help Campbell write again. We're not really talking about a saintly muse here: Kraft pretty much just thinks Campbell should get some. What leads him to this conclusion? Oysters, basically—a famous aphrodisiac.
Quote #4
Helga and I were finally left alone.
We were shy.
Being a man of fairly advanced years, so many of the years having been spent in celibacy, I was more than shy. I was afraid to test my strength as a lover. And the fear was amplified by the remarkable number of youthful characteristics my Helga had miraculously retained. (18.1-3)
So Campbell's just about to sleep with Helga again after many years of separation (or so he thinks), and it's now that we learn that the dude has been faithful to her and never slept with anyone else. Beyond the potentially sweet moment of a second "wedding night," we get a hint that Helga might not be Helga—but how could we know?
We're being set up for a shock even as Vonnegut gives us clues about Resi's identity. After all, Campbell knows Helga's body more than anything else about her. It's a sad day when he gets confused by "the magic" of her youth.
Quote #5
One of the things Helga had in her suitcase, as I've already said, was a book by me. It was a manuscript I had never intended that it be published. I regarded it as unpublishable except by pornographers. (23.1)
This is the second time Campbell refers to his sex life with Helga as porn. What makes it pornography? Just the fact that it's sex? That it's written down? That it could be read? That Campbell rereads it for his own pleasure?
Quote #6
It was called Memoirs of a Monogamous Casanova. In it I told of my conquests of all the hundreds of women my wife, my Helga, had been. It was clinical, obsessed, some say, insane. It was a diary, recording day by day for the first two years of the war, our erotic life—to the exclusion of all else. There is not one word in it to indicate even the century or the continent of its origin. (23.2)
Sex trumps geography and nationalism in this little book. It also reshapes Helga's identity: she is more than simply one Helga; each night she is a different woman. This might be saying something about these lovers' propensity for role-play or for keeping things new. By giving Helga's body multiple identities, this carefully recorded sex life erases all of her identity. If she is everyone, she is no one. Or could it mean that Helga could be anything for Campbell because she meant everything to him? Or both?
Quote #7
Helga knew I kept the peculiar diary. I kept it as one of many devices for keeping our sexual pleasure keen. The book is not only a report of an experiment, but a part of the experiment it reports—a self-conscious experiment by a man and a woman to be endlessly fascinating to each other sexually—. (23.4)
Okay, so Campbell made a porno. Not just any porno, but a living document that both chronicles and enhances his sex life with Helga. He calls it an experiment, though. Curious. It's almost like they're both specimens in their own sex lab.
Maybe we're reading too much into this—hey, it's why we're here—but it kind of makes us think about the emphasis on reports, experiments, and scientific documentation prevalent during WWII. Remember all those creepy experiments the Nazis did? Maybe it's nothing. But maybe this is also supposed to walk the line between "Aw, he loves his wife," and "Ew, why is he taking 'clinical' notes?"
Quote #8
We had been apart for sixteen years. My first lust that night was in my fingertips. Other parts of me...that were contented later were contented in a ritual way, thoroughly, to...clinical perfection. (23.12)
Here's more of that "clinical" documentation, and it is not hot. We repeat: not hot. Like, what? You're having lusty times, and the way you write about it is super off-putting. In fact, we'd probably like to nominate Campbell for a bad sex in fiction award. Vonnegut probably would love that that's our reaction. He spends a lot of time poking fun at Campbell, after all.
Quote #9
'I don't know,' I said. I shook my head. 'What is this strange crime I've committed?'
'I'm the one who's committed the crime,' she said. 'I must have been crazy. When I escaped into West Berlin, when they gave me a form to fill out, asked me who I was, what I was—who I knew—'(24.12-13)
Campbell's worried he committed a crime, because sleeping with his sister-in-law feels kind of incest-y, even though by modern legal standards, he's in the clear. Resi recognizes, on the other hand, that by performing a bed trick, she's committed a crime: having sex with Campbell without his consent. It's not a healthy start to a new relationship.
Quote #10
'Memoirs of a Monogamous Casanova is a curious little chapter in Russian history,' said Wirtanen. 'It could hardly be published with official approval in Russia—and yet, it was such an attractive, strangely moral piece of pornography, so ideal for a nation suffering from shortages of everything but men and women, that presses in Budapest were somehow encouraged to start printing it—and those presses have, somehow, never been ordered to stop.' Wirtanen winked at me. (35.43)
Campbell's porno is a hit. Nobody knows it's his, because it was stolen and published in Russia, but it's still a hit. Plus, it's perfect state-sanctioned pornography, since all the sex that's fit to print is between a husband and a wife. Well, isn't that convenient? Spiciness level: mild.