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袘芯泄薪褟 薪芯屑械褉 锌鈥櫻徰傃�, 邪斜芯 袛懈褌褟褔懈泄 褏褉械褋褌芯胁懈泄 锌芯褏褨写
袣薪懈谐邪 芦袘芯泄薪褟 鈩�5, 邪斜芯 袛懈褌褟褔懈泄 褏褉械褋褌芯胁懈泄 锌芯褏褨写禄 薪邪谢械卸懈褌褜 写芯 锌械褉械谢褨泻褍 100 薪邪泄谢褨锌褕懈褏 褉芯屑邪薪褨胁 褍褋褨褏 褔邪褋褨胁, 褑械 芯写薪邪 蟹 薪邪泄蟹薪邪褔懈屑褨褕懈褏 褍 褋胁褨褌褨 邪薪褌懈胁芯褦薪薪懈褏 泻薪懈谐. 袩芯写褨褩 褌胁芯褉褍 褉芯蟹谐芯褉褌邪褞褌褜褋褟 薪邪 褌谢褨 褋褍屑薪芯蟹胁褨褋薪芯谐芯 斜芯屑斜邪褉写褍胁邪薪薪褟 袛褉械蟹写械薪邪 锌褨写 褔邪褋 袛褉褍谐芯褩 褋胁褨褌芯胁芯褩 胁褨泄薪懈. 袨写褨褋褋械褟 谐芯谢芯胁薪芯谐芯 谐械褉芯褟 鈥� 袘褨谢谢褨 袩褨谢覒褉懈屑邪 鈥� 泻褉褨蟹褜 褔邪褋 胁褨写芯斜褉邪卸邪褦 斜械蟹褍屑薪褍 屑褨褎褨褔薪褍 锌芯写芯褉芯卸 薪邪褕芯谐芯 蟹褉褍泄薪芯胁邪薪芯谐芯 卸懈褌褌褟, 泻芯谢懈 屑懈 薪邪屑邪谐邪褦屑芯褋褟 胁褨写褕褍泻邪褌懈 褋械薪褋 褍 褌芯屑褍, 褔芯谐芯 斜芯褩屑芯褋褟 薪邪泄斜褨谢褜褕械. 效懈 蟹屑芯卸械 邪胁褌芯褉 薪邪胁褔懈褌懈 薪邪褋 褨谐薪芯褉褍胁邪褌懈 卸邪褏谢懈胁褨 褔邪褋懈 泄 蟹芯褋械褉械写卸褍胁邪褌懈褋褟 薪邪 谐邪褉薪懈褏?
319 pages, Hardcover
First published March 31, 1969
26621 people are currently reading
968473 people want to read
About the author
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
650听books36k听followersKurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.
He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.
After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.
His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.
Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)
He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.
After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.
His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.
Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45,615 reviews
January 3, 2010
I have to admit to being somewhat baffled by the acclaim Slaughterhouse-5 has received over the years. Sure, the story is interesting. It has a fascinating and mostly successful blend of tragedy and comic relief. And yes, I guess the fractured structure and time-travelling element must have been quite novel and original back in the day. But that doesn't excuse the book's flaws, of which there are a great many in my (seemingly unconventional) opinion. Take, for instance, Vonnegut's endless repetition of the phrase 'So it goes.' Wikipedia informs me it crops up 106 times in the book. It felt like three hundred times to me. About forty pages into the book, I was so fed up with the words 'So it goes' that I felt like hurling the book across the room, something I have not done since trying to read up on French semiotics back in the 1990s. I got used to coming across the words every two pages or so eventually, but I never grew to like them. God, no.
I found some other nits to pick, too. Some of them were small and trivial and frankly rather ridiculous, such as -- wait for it -- the hyphen in the book's title. Seriously, what is that hyphen doing there? There's no need for a hyphen there. Couldn't someone have removed it, like, 437 editions ago? And while I'm at it, couldn't some discerning editor have done something about the monotonous quality of Vonnegut's prose -- about the interminable repetition of short subject-verb-object sentences? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all authors should use Henry James- or Claire Messud-length sentences. Heaven forbid. I'm actually rather fond of minimalism, both in visual art and in writing. But Vonnegut's prose is so sparse and simplistic it's monotonous rather than minimalist, to the point where I frequently found myself wishing for a run-on sentence every now and then, or for an actual in-depth description of something. I hardly ever got either. As a result, there were times when I felt like I was reading a bare-bones outline of a story rather than the story itself. Granted, it was an interesting outline, larded with pleasing ideas and observations, but still, I think the story could have been told in a more effective way. A less annoying way, too.
As for the plot, I liked it. I liked the little vignettes Vonnegut came up with and the colourful characters he created (the British officers being my particular favourites). I liked the fact that you're never quite sure whether Billy is suffering from dementia, brain damage or some kind of delayed post-traumatic stress disorder, or whether there is some actual time-travelling going on. I even liked the jarring switches in perspective, although I think they could have been handled in a slightly more subtle manner. And I liked the book's anti-war message, weak and defeatist though it seemed to be. In short, I liked the book, but it took some doing. I hope I'll be less annoyed by the two other Vonnegut books I have sitting on my shelves, Breakfast of Champions and Cat's Cradle.
I found some other nits to pick, too. Some of them were small and trivial and frankly rather ridiculous, such as -- wait for it -- the hyphen in the book's title. Seriously, what is that hyphen doing there? There's no need for a hyphen there. Couldn't someone have removed it, like, 437 editions ago? And while I'm at it, couldn't some discerning editor have done something about the monotonous quality of Vonnegut's prose -- about the interminable repetition of short subject-verb-object sentences? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all authors should use Henry James- or Claire Messud-length sentences. Heaven forbid. I'm actually rather fond of minimalism, both in visual art and in writing. But Vonnegut's prose is so sparse and simplistic it's monotonous rather than minimalist, to the point where I frequently found myself wishing for a run-on sentence every now and then, or for an actual in-depth description of something. I hardly ever got either. As a result, there were times when I felt like I was reading a bare-bones outline of a story rather than the story itself. Granted, it was an interesting outline, larded with pleasing ideas and observations, but still, I think the story could have been told in a more effective way. A less annoying way, too.
As for the plot, I liked it. I liked the little vignettes Vonnegut came up with and the colourful characters he created (the British officers being my particular favourites). I liked the fact that you're never quite sure whether Billy is suffering from dementia, brain damage or some kind of delayed post-traumatic stress disorder, or whether there is some actual time-travelling going on. I even liked the jarring switches in perspective, although I think they could have been handled in a slightly more subtle manner. And I liked the book's anti-war message, weak and defeatist though it seemed to be. In short, I liked the book, but it took some doing. I hope I'll be less annoyed by the two other Vonnegut books I have sitting on my shelves, Breakfast of Champions and Cat's Cradle.
January 26, 2025
There are some terrible reviews of SH5 floating around 欧宝娱乐, but one particularly odious sentiment is that Slaughterhouse-Five isn't anti-war.
This is usually based on the following quote.
For context, Mr. Rumfoord is an old military historian described as "hateful and cruel" who wants to see weaklings like Billy exterminated.
On Tralfamadore, Billy was introduced to the revelation that all things happen exactly as they do, and that they will always happen that way, and that they will never happen any other way. Meaning, time is all at once. The aliens, incidentally, admit to destroying the universe in a comical accident fated far into the future, and they're very sorry, but so it goes. <- passive acceptance
The entire story up to this point has been about Billy, buffeted like a powerless pathetic leaf in a storm, pushed this way and that by forces entirely outside his tiny purview. He lays catatonically in a hospital bed after the plane crash and the death of his wife, and all the time traveling back and forth from Dresden where toddlers and families and old grannies and anti-war civilians were burned alive in a carefully organized inferno (so it goes), and Billy is about ready to agree to absolutely anything.
It can't be prevented. It can't be helped.
You're powerless, after a while. What hope have we, or anyone caught in the middle of a war, or even the poor soldiers who are nothing but pawns and children (hence the children's crusade), to influence these gigantic, global events?
Therefore, Billy agrees with the hateful, the cruel Mr. Rumfoord, who is revising his military history of WWII, having previously forgotten to mention the Dresden bombing. Women and children, not evaporated instantly, but melted slowly by chemicals and liquid flame, their leftovers, according to Billy, lying in the street like blackened logs, or in piles of families who died together in their homes.
Incidentally, how can anything be pro-war? What kind of incoherent pro-suffering ideology is that? Is there a book that touches on the subject of war and is not against it?
We don't support wars, though we are sometimes forced to accept them.
This is usually based on the following quote.
"It had to be done," Rumfoord told Billy, speaking of the destruction of Dresden.
"I know," said Billy.
"That's war."
"I know. I'm not complaining"
"It must have been hell on the ground."
"It was," said Billy Pilgrim.
"Pity the men who had to do it."
"I do."
"You must have had mixed feelings, there on the ground."
"It was all right," said Billy. "Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does. I learned that on Tralfamadore."
For context, Mr. Rumfoord is an old military historian described as "hateful and cruel" who wants to see weaklings like Billy exterminated.
On Tralfamadore, Billy was introduced to the revelation that all things happen exactly as they do, and that they will always happen that way, and that they will never happen any other way. Meaning, time is all at once. The aliens, incidentally, admit to destroying the universe in a comical accident fated far into the future, and they're very sorry, but so it goes. <- passive acceptance
The entire story up to this point has been about Billy, buffeted like a powerless pathetic leaf in a storm, pushed this way and that by forces entirely outside his tiny purview. He lays catatonically in a hospital bed after the plane crash and the death of his wife, and all the time traveling back and forth from Dresden where toddlers and families and old grannies and anti-war civilians were burned alive in a carefully organized inferno (so it goes), and Billy is about ready to agree to absolutely anything.
It can't be prevented. It can't be helped.
You're powerless, after a while. What hope have we, or anyone caught in the middle of a war, or even the poor soldiers who are nothing but pawns and children (hence the children's crusade), to influence these gigantic, global events?
Therefore, Billy agrees with the hateful, the cruel Mr. Rumfoord, who is revising his military history of WWII, having previously forgotten to mention the Dresden bombing. Women and children, not evaporated instantly, but melted slowly by chemicals and liquid flame, their leftovers, according to Billy, lying in the street like blackened logs, or in piles of families who died together in their homes.
Incidentally, how can anything be pro-war? What kind of incoherent pro-suffering ideology is that? Is there a book that touches on the subject of war and is not against it?
We don't support wars, though we are sometimes forced to accept them.
July 29, 2011
I miss Kurt Vonnegut.
He hasn't been gone all that long. Of course he isn't gone, yet he is gone. He has always been alive and he will always be dead. So it goes.
Slaughterhouse-five is next to impossible to explain, let alone review, but here I am. And here I go.
What is it about?
It's about war.
It's about love and hate.
It's about post traumatic stress.
It's about sanity and insanity.
It's about aliens (not the illegal kind, the spacey kind).
It's about life.
It's about death.
so it goes.
"That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones."
This is how I live my life. This is how I get through the day. Most days I am successful, some days I'm not. Today is one of the "not" days. Like so many Americans these days, I feel I'm in a rut. Like so many Americans I don't understand why I am where I am. This was not the plan. This was not what I had in mind......
Oh poor me....boo hoo.
This book. This book got me thinking. So much about life sucks, true, but not many of us want to give up on it that easy. Why? because of the "good ones". And what makes "good ones" is our ability to create and enjoy creating.....at least I think so.
"Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, saut茅 it, whatever. MAKE."
鈥� Joss Whedon
If you make something, a painting, a poem, a novel, a good meal, a person.....you continue to live even after death. I think that's what Mr. Vonnegut was getting at. Maybe.
At least that is how he has remained alive for me.
He hasn't been gone all that long. Of course he isn't gone, yet he is gone. He has always been alive and he will always be dead. So it goes.
Slaughterhouse-five is next to impossible to explain, let alone review, but here I am. And here I go.
What is it about?
It's about war.
It's about love and hate.
It's about post traumatic stress.
It's about sanity and insanity.
It's about aliens (not the illegal kind, the spacey kind).
It's about life.
It's about death.
so it goes.
"That's one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones."
This is how I live my life. This is how I get through the day. Most days I am successful, some days I'm not. Today is one of the "not" days. Like so many Americans these days, I feel I'm in a rut. Like so many Americans I don't understand why I am where I am. This was not the plan. This was not what I had in mind......
Oh poor me....boo hoo.
This book. This book got me thinking. So much about life sucks, true, but not many of us want to give up on it that easy. Why? because of the "good ones". And what makes "good ones" is our ability to create and enjoy creating.....at least I think so.
"Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, saut茅 it, whatever. MAKE."
鈥� Joss Whedon
If you make something, a painting, a poem, a novel, a good meal, a person.....you continue to live even after death. I think that's what Mr. Vonnegut was getting at. Maybe.
At least that is how he has remained alive for me.
September 13, 2023
welcome to...SEPTEMBERHOUSE-FIVE.
it's another title + month based pun, it's another classic on my currently reading list, it's another PROJECT LONG CLASSIC installment, a project by which i take on classics i've been procrastinating reading in itty bitty sections to make them seem manageable.
this one isn't long, but i did only add it to my want to read list because i somehow have a bookmark that says "everything was beautiful and nothing hurt" and i feel like a poseur.
so similar in impact.
let's get into it.
CHAPTER 1
i think this book has like 10 chapters, so i'll just read one a day till it's done and call it the world's worst project selection in terms of accuracy.
to be honest i just want an excuse to read it immediately.
CHAPTER 2
"The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever."
i mean. holy moley.
CHAPTER 3
this book has a character who briefly appears and in his short time with us says that if you're writing an anti-war book, you may as well write an anti-glacier book for how effective it will be. both war and glaciers are here intended as timeless and permanent parts of human life.
with climate change now making glaciers a much more impeachable concept, this statement acts as one of strange and ironic and twisted hope.
CHAPTER 4
"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."
if i have to get abducted by aliens i hope they're also wise.
CHAPTER 5
it's always fun to see another book you've enjoyed or want to read mentioned in a book you're actively reading and enjoying. like a special guest star appearance.
CHAPTER 6
do you know the meme where a book / movie / tv show / romping good time / limited series / human life has to end when they say the title?
anyway. this book would've just ended.
CHAPTER 7
one of those books where you're like "i could write a whole paper about this" every other page.
CHAPTER 8
this book is somewhat unique in antiwar books for its admission that war is intended to make shells out of heroic people, and that "one of its effects" is to prevent people from being "characters."
it seems there is an impulse to think antiwar media will be more effective if this truth is ignored, but i've never found that to be the case. the most disturbing part of war, after all, is its anti-humanity.
CHAPTER 9
a while back my boyfriend was flipping through my copy of this book and laughed pretty hard, but i didn't ask why because he appeared to be fairly close to the end and i didn't want to be spoiled.
i have to say, i gave him more literary benefit of the doubt than he was entitled to for laughing at what i now realize was a drawing of boobs.
CHAPTER 10
welp.
OVERALL
this book was mind melting and funny and smart and touching and painful, as was realizing that the quote i love so much that it inspired me to read this book is not meant sincerely.
not everything is beautiful. a hell of a lot hurts. we shouldn't respond to death with nonchalance鈥攚e should never accept that that's how it has to go, not all of the time, not right then. war is evil, and things mean things, and we should keep life close to us even when it's tempting to release it, to pull your hand back as if from a hot stove.
and the hurting makes the beautiful more beautiful anyway.
rating: 5
it's another title + month based pun, it's another classic on my currently reading list, it's another PROJECT LONG CLASSIC installment, a project by which i take on classics i've been procrastinating reading in itty bitty sections to make them seem manageable.
this one isn't long, but i did only add it to my want to read list because i somehow have a bookmark that says "everything was beautiful and nothing hurt" and i feel like a poseur.
so similar in impact.
let's get into it.
CHAPTER 1
i think this book has like 10 chapters, so i'll just read one a day till it's done and call it the world's worst project selection in terms of accuracy.
to be honest i just want an excuse to read it immediately.
CHAPTER 2
"The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever."
i mean. holy moley.
CHAPTER 3
this book has a character who briefly appears and in his short time with us says that if you're writing an anti-war book, you may as well write an anti-glacier book for how effective it will be. both war and glaciers are here intended as timeless and permanent parts of human life.
with climate change now making glaciers a much more impeachable concept, this statement acts as one of strange and ironic and twisted hope.
CHAPTER 4
"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why."
if i have to get abducted by aliens i hope they're also wise.
CHAPTER 5
it's always fun to see another book you've enjoyed or want to read mentioned in a book you're actively reading and enjoying. like a special guest star appearance.
CHAPTER 6
do you know the meme where a book / movie / tv show / romping good time / limited series / human life has to end when they say the title?
anyway. this book would've just ended.
CHAPTER 7
one of those books where you're like "i could write a whole paper about this" every other page.
CHAPTER 8
this book is somewhat unique in antiwar books for its admission that war is intended to make shells out of heroic people, and that "one of its effects" is to prevent people from being "characters."
it seems there is an impulse to think antiwar media will be more effective if this truth is ignored, but i've never found that to be the case. the most disturbing part of war, after all, is its anti-humanity.
CHAPTER 9
a while back my boyfriend was flipping through my copy of this book and laughed pretty hard, but i didn't ask why because he appeared to be fairly close to the end and i didn't want to be spoiled.
i have to say, i gave him more literary benefit of the doubt than he was entitled to for laughing at what i now realize was a drawing of boobs.
CHAPTER 10
welp.
OVERALL
this book was mind melting and funny and smart and touching and painful, as was realizing that the quote i love so much that it inspired me to read this book is not meant sincerely.
not everything is beautiful. a hell of a lot hurts. we shouldn't respond to death with nonchalance鈥攚e should never accept that that's how it has to go, not all of the time, not right then. war is evil, and things mean things, and we should keep life close to us even when it's tempting to release it, to pull your hand back as if from a hot stove.
and the hurting makes the beautiful more beautiful anyway.
rating: 5
May 6, 2020
Every so often you read a book, a book that takes everything you thought created an excellent novel and tears it to pieces; it then sets it on fire and throws it out the window in a display of pure individual brilliance. That is how I felt when I read this jumbled and absurd, yet fantastic, novel.
The book has no structure or at the very least a perceivable one: it鈥檚 all over the place. But, it works so well. It cements the book鈥檚 message and purpose underlining its meaning. Indeed, this book is an anti-war novel, which is asserted (in part) through its random and confusing organisation. The story is 鈥渏umbled and jangled鈥� such as the meaning of war. It appears pointless to the reader, again alluding to the meaning of war. It also suggests that after the war a soldier鈥檚 life is in ruins and has no clear direction, which can be seen with the sad case of Billy Pilgrim. So it goes.
Billy Pilgrim is a poor tortured soul who after the fire-bombing of Dresden is in a state of flux. His mind cannot remain in the present and darts back and forth in time like the narrative. He was never the most assertive of men, and after the war became a shadow of his already meek self. The war has left him delusional, which is manifested by his abduction by aliens. This may or may not have happened. Vonnegut leaves it up to the reader to decide. What decision they make effects what genre the novel belongs to.
Is it science fiction?
If Billy was abducted by aliens then this is sci-fi, but if it is a figment of his imagination then this becomes something much deeper. It鈥檚 up to the reader how they interpret it, but I personally believe that he wasn鈥檛 abducted. I think he made it up, unconsciously, as a coping strategy for the effects of war, and that the author has used it as a tool to raise questions of the futility of free will, but more importantly to further establish the anti-war theme.
Vonnegut draws on a multitude of sources to establish this further, such as the presidential address of Truman. He ironically suggests that the A-bomb, whilst devastating, is no worse than ordinary war; he points out the fact that the fire-bombing of Dresden killed more than the nuking of Hiroshima. Through this he uses Billy Pilgrim鈥檚 life as a metaphor for what war for the effects of war on the human state.
So it goes.
Vonnegut himself is a character within the narrative as the life of Billy Pilgrim is, in part, an autobiographical statement. The narrator addresses the reader and informs them of this. He tells them that this all happened more or less. This establishes the black humour towards war and the inconsequential deaths of those that are in it. Hence the motif 鈥渟o it goes鈥� at each, and every, mention of death whether large or small. He ends the book on the line 鈥減oo-te-weet.鈥� He even tells the reader he is going to do this, but at the same time demonstrates that there is nothing intelligible to be said about war.
I warn you, if you鈥檝e not read this, it is one of the most bizarre books you will ever read. The main character time travels, in his mind, and has no real present state. The narrative initially appears random and completely confusing. But, once you reach the end you鈥檒l see this book for what it is: the most individual, and unique, statement against war that will ever be written.
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The book has no structure or at the very least a perceivable one: it鈥檚 all over the place. But, it works so well. It cements the book鈥檚 message and purpose underlining its meaning. Indeed, this book is an anti-war novel, which is asserted (in part) through its random and confusing organisation. The story is 鈥渏umbled and jangled鈥� such as the meaning of war. It appears pointless to the reader, again alluding to the meaning of war. It also suggests that after the war a soldier鈥檚 life is in ruins and has no clear direction, which can be seen with the sad case of Billy Pilgrim. So it goes.
Billy Pilgrim is a poor tortured soul who after the fire-bombing of Dresden is in a state of flux. His mind cannot remain in the present and darts back and forth in time like the narrative. He was never the most assertive of men, and after the war became a shadow of his already meek self. The war has left him delusional, which is manifested by his abduction by aliens. This may or may not have happened. Vonnegut leaves it up to the reader to decide. What decision they make effects what genre the novel belongs to.
Is it science fiction?
If Billy was abducted by aliens then this is sci-fi, but if it is a figment of his imagination then this becomes something much deeper. It鈥檚 up to the reader how they interpret it, but I personally believe that he wasn鈥檛 abducted. I think he made it up, unconsciously, as a coping strategy for the effects of war, and that the author has used it as a tool to raise questions of the futility of free will, but more importantly to further establish the anti-war theme.
Vonnegut draws on a multitude of sources to establish this further, such as the presidential address of Truman. He ironically suggests that the A-bomb, whilst devastating, is no worse than ordinary war; he points out the fact that the fire-bombing of Dresden killed more than the nuking of Hiroshima. Through this he uses Billy Pilgrim鈥檚 life as a metaphor for what war for the effects of war on the human state.
So it goes.
Vonnegut himself is a character within the narrative as the life of Billy Pilgrim is, in part, an autobiographical statement. The narrator addresses the reader and informs them of this. He tells them that this all happened more or less. This establishes the black humour towards war and the inconsequential deaths of those that are in it. Hence the motif 鈥渟o it goes鈥� at each, and every, mention of death whether large or small. He ends the book on the line 鈥減oo-te-weet.鈥� He even tells the reader he is going to do this, but at the same time demonstrates that there is nothing intelligible to be said about war.
I warn you, if you鈥檝e not read this, it is one of the most bizarre books you will ever read. The main character time travels, in his mind, and has no real present state. The narrative initially appears random and completely confusing. But, once you reach the end you鈥檒l see this book for what it is: the most individual, and unique, statement against war that will ever be written.
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February 15, 2008
I read this book first in 1999 when my grandfather passed away. It was a bit of a coincidence as his funeral occurred between a Primate Anatomy exam and a paper for my Experimental Fiction class on Slaughterhouse Five. I was frantically trying to remember the names of all kinds of bones when I picked this up in the other hand and tried to wrap my head around it.
Basically, Vonnegut has written the only Tralfamadorian novel I can think of. These beings, most undoubtedly inspired in Billy Pilgrim's head by the scattered science fiction plots of Kilgore Trout, experience time as a continuum that is constantly occurring...and when they look at time, even though in their version of history, the world is in a constant state of being destroyed for example, they choose to see the things that make them happy...the good moments.
What Billy learns from these creatures is that each traumatic event that has happened in his life fits very precisely into a state of meticulous nature. It has always happened and always will happen and so it goes (on and on and on). What Billy Pilgrim truly experiences over and over in his life is Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. He exists throughout his memories traveling back and forth with the knowledge of what will happen and how precise it all is. Dresden is bombed in every moment and his friend Derby is put in front of a firing squad. At every second, he is the only survivor of a plane wreck, he is getting married, and he is fighting a Children's Crusade. It's the only way he can look at the despair that has happened and make sense of it.
When my grandfather died and I read this, I felt as if it was just what I needed because I could escape back into time and remember the good memories of my grandfather...if they existed (even if in some fourth dimension) then he was just as dead as he was alive and eating peanut butter chocolate ice cream. At the same time my grandfather had a heart attack, I was watching him play cards with my grandma at the kitchen table. But which one to think of? Well, that was easy. Death can't be prevented and so it goes but you can always try to change which moment you live in. It's a little bit different than a memory and if you go far into it, you'll end up like Billy Pilgrim, which is to say, you will go insane because the rest of the world sees time as linear and counts seconds and minutes and hours.
Once and awhile, it doesn't hurt. I re-read this again on the plane rides home and back before and after my grandmother's funeral on Monday and last night. My grandma was a strong and intelligent woman and she always read everything she saw. My recent memories of my grandmother were of her at the holidays. She always had her mind but her physical condition had deteriorated and she was dependent on oxygen. It made me sad to think of her like this a bit.
It's really hard for me to think that my grandma is no more but then I tell myself...well, it's silly for me to keep crying on and on about this. My grandma is right now reading at 4am in her living room chair and I am a child creeping down the stairs hoping she's still up. She is telling me that one day I'll come around and like green onions. She is reminding me to keep my feet off of the davenport and about being "tickled" by something. She lives in a jungle of houseplants and watches musicals all of the time, always pointing out when some distant relative of mine appears briefly in The Greatest Show on Earth. My grandma can't be dead and be doing all of those things, can she? It doesn't make sense. She will always be alive in some moments just like I will always be seven and nine and twenty eight and perhaps past thirty and forty. So, she'll always be here.
I just wish I could dream about her.
Basically, Vonnegut has written the only Tralfamadorian novel I can think of. These beings, most undoubtedly inspired in Billy Pilgrim's head by the scattered science fiction plots of Kilgore Trout, experience time as a continuum that is constantly occurring...and when they look at time, even though in their version of history, the world is in a constant state of being destroyed for example, they choose to see the things that make them happy...the good moments.
What Billy learns from these creatures is that each traumatic event that has happened in his life fits very precisely into a state of meticulous nature. It has always happened and always will happen and so it goes (on and on and on). What Billy Pilgrim truly experiences over and over in his life is Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. He exists throughout his memories traveling back and forth with the knowledge of what will happen and how precise it all is. Dresden is bombed in every moment and his friend Derby is put in front of a firing squad. At every second, he is the only survivor of a plane wreck, he is getting married, and he is fighting a Children's Crusade. It's the only way he can look at the despair that has happened and make sense of it.
When my grandfather died and I read this, I felt as if it was just what I needed because I could escape back into time and remember the good memories of my grandfather...if they existed (even if in some fourth dimension) then he was just as dead as he was alive and eating peanut butter chocolate ice cream. At the same time my grandfather had a heart attack, I was watching him play cards with my grandma at the kitchen table. But which one to think of? Well, that was easy. Death can't be prevented and so it goes but you can always try to change which moment you live in. It's a little bit different than a memory and if you go far into it, you'll end up like Billy Pilgrim, which is to say, you will go insane because the rest of the world sees time as linear and counts seconds and minutes and hours.
Once and awhile, it doesn't hurt. I re-read this again on the plane rides home and back before and after my grandmother's funeral on Monday and last night. My grandma was a strong and intelligent woman and she always read everything she saw. My recent memories of my grandmother were of her at the holidays. She always had her mind but her physical condition had deteriorated and she was dependent on oxygen. It made me sad to think of her like this a bit.
It's really hard for me to think that my grandma is no more but then I tell myself...well, it's silly for me to keep crying on and on about this. My grandma is right now reading at 4am in her living room chair and I am a child creeping down the stairs hoping she's still up. She is telling me that one day I'll come around and like green onions. She is reminding me to keep my feet off of the davenport and about being "tickled" by something. She lives in a jungle of houseplants and watches musicals all of the time, always pointing out when some distant relative of mine appears briefly in The Greatest Show on Earth. My grandma can't be dead and be doing all of those things, can she? It doesn't make sense. She will always be alive in some moments just like I will always be seven and nine and twenty eight and perhaps past thirty and forty. So, she'll always be here.
I just wish I could dream about her.
April 14, 2025
Update: I decided to upgrade the rating to 5*. Still on my mind after more than 1 year.
This was such a pleasant surprise. This book has been on my to-read list since the beginning of my activity on 欧宝娱乐 and I did a good job avoiding to read it. I was sure I would not like it since: 1. I am not a fan of books/movies about war and 2. I thought this science-fiction satire style was not for me. I only wanted to read it because it is a classic and I resolved to read more of those (modern or not). This book kept bumping on different lists so I could not escape its lure.
Oh, I judged this book so wrongly. Actually, I liked it a lot. I thought the time travelling, the fractured prose and the detached tone of the narrator were very effective to portrait the Dresden atrocities and how to witness this can impact your life forever.
This was such a pleasant surprise. This book has been on my to-read list since the beginning of my activity on 欧宝娱乐 and I did a good job avoiding to read it. I was sure I would not like it since: 1. I am not a fan of books/movies about war and 2. I thought this science-fiction satire style was not for me. I only wanted to read it because it is a classic and I resolved to read more of those (modern or not). This book kept bumping on different lists so I could not escape its lure.
Oh, I judged this book so wrongly. Actually, I liked it a lot. I thought the time travelling, the fractured prose and the detached tone of the narrator were very effective to portrait the Dresden atrocities and how to witness this can impact your life forever.
December 24, 2021
Kurt Vonnegut always had his own unique attitude to society and history. Therefore Slaughterhouse-Five is a special story of man and his place in war and peace.
War is a wonderful thing 鈥� it presents a man with a gift of madness. And madness is even a more wonderful thing 鈥� it allows a man to travel in time, to go through space to distant planets, to see things others can鈥檛 see.
So it goes鈥� Then it stops鈥�
Shells were bursting in the treetops with terrific bangs showering down knives and needles and razorblades. Little lumps of lead in copper jackets were crisscrossing the woods under the shellbursts, zipping along much faster than sound.
War is a wonderful thing 鈥� it presents a man with a gift of madness. And madness is even a more wonderful thing 鈥� it allows a man to travel in time, to go through space to distant planets, to see things others can鈥檛 see.
鈥榃hy anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?鈥� 鈥榊es.鈥� 鈥榃ell, here we are鈥� trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.鈥�
So it goes鈥� Then it stops鈥�
February 9, 2025
鈥淎ll moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.鈥�
~~
My junior year of college, I had a roommate, Don, his nickname was Har Don ~~ which he hated; Har Don loved ~~ no, he worshiped . It鈥檚 ironic since everything Har Don believed in was the antithesis of what Vonnegut stood for. Har Don insisted I read Vonnegut's . He told me it was the greatest novel ever written. I did, and it isn't. He insisted I was wrong. I wasn't. But, I was done with Vonnegut; there were authors I was craving to read and Vonnegut was not one of them.
Skip ahead to my joining 欧宝娱乐. Friends here, people whose opinions I truly respect, kept telling me I had to read . So, I broke down, and picked up a copy. And? Well, it is hard to put into words how much I loved the world ~~ no worlds ~~ inhabited by Billy Pilgrim.
I can honestly say I have not read anything like . That's a good thing. I had just finished and , two tales of young love gone wrong so I was looking to inhabit an entirely different world. definitely was that world, or should I say worlds???
is based on Vonnegut's experiences as a POW during the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945. is considered a modern literary masterpiece, as it should be. It propelled Vonnegut, who had been largely ignored by both critics and the public, to fame and literary acclaim. So it goes.
follows Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes "unstuck in time," and brings together different periods of Billy's life ~~ his time as an ill-fated soldier, his post-war optometry career, and a foray in an extraterrestrial zoo where he served as an exhibit ~~ with humor and deep insight.
was published on March 31, 1969 and became an instant and surprise hit. It spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times best seller list and went through five printings by July of 1969.
has not been without controversy. The American Library Association listed the book as the 46th most banned or challenged book of the first decade of the 21st century. "It was banned from Oakland County, Michigan public schools in 1972. The circuit judge there accused the novel of being 鈥渄epraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar, and anti-Christian.鈥� No wonder I loved it!
鈥淢y books are being thrown out of school libraries all over the country鈥攂ecause they鈥檙e supposedly obscene," Vonnegut told the Paris Review. "I鈥檝e seen letters to small-town newspapers that put in the same class with Deep Throat and Hustler magazine. How could anybody masturbate to ?鈥� I'm starting to like this Vonnegut character!
"In 2011, Wesley Scroggins, an assistant professor at Missouri State University, called on the Republic, MO school board to ban . He wrote in the local paper, 'This is a book that contains so much profane language, it would make a sailor blush with shame. The 鈥榝 word鈥� is plastered on almost every other page. The content ranges from naked men and women in cages together so that others can watch them having sex to God telling people that they better not mess with his loser, bum of a son, named Jesus Christ.' The board eventually voted 4-0 to remove the novel from the high school curriculum and its library."
In response to this ban, the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in Indianapolis gave away 150 free copies of to Republic, Missouri students who wanted to read it. As a kid who was not allowed to give book reports in front of the class because my reading choices were "morally questionable" I now officially love the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library!
is the strange tale of Billy Pilgrim. As I said previously, Billy becomes "unstuck" from the linear nature of time and takes us along on his journey. Billy Pilgrim is the anti-everyman while engaging in love, ethics, war, science, and aliens. 's main theme is man鈥檚 inhumanity to man throughout history.
> is not without its own heartfelt themes. It is most definitely an anti-war book. It is in many ways an anti-death book. It presents a philosophy questioning the purpose of life amidst determinism. Ayn Rand would have hated ~~ yet another reason to love this book.
is often insensitive and dark, and yet, you can't help but laugh at the world Vonnegut has created. is full of contradictions that only serve to make Vonnegut's points.
doesn't end with the death of Billy Pilgrim. That would far to simple an ending for something as brilliant as this; Billy lives on reliving this strange existence, learning and relearning the lessons of his life, unstuck from time.
So, have I revised my opinion of Vonnegut? Most definitely. Will I read more Vonnegut in the future? Yes, but selectively. Will I reread ? NEVER ...
~~
My junior year of college, I had a roommate, Don, his nickname was Har Don ~~ which he hated; Har Don loved ~~ no, he worshiped . It鈥檚 ironic since everything Har Don believed in was the antithesis of what Vonnegut stood for. Har Don insisted I read Vonnegut's . He told me it was the greatest novel ever written. I did, and it isn't. He insisted I was wrong. I wasn't. But, I was done with Vonnegut; there were authors I was craving to read and Vonnegut was not one of them.
Skip ahead to my joining 欧宝娱乐. Friends here, people whose opinions I truly respect, kept telling me I had to read . So, I broke down, and picked up a copy. And? Well, it is hard to put into words how much I loved the world ~~ no worlds ~~ inhabited by Billy Pilgrim.
I can honestly say I have not read anything like . That's a good thing. I had just finished and , two tales of young love gone wrong so I was looking to inhabit an entirely different world. definitely was that world, or should I say worlds???
is based on Vonnegut's experiences as a POW during the Allied bombing of Dresden in 1945. is considered a modern literary masterpiece, as it should be. It propelled Vonnegut, who had been largely ignored by both critics and the public, to fame and literary acclaim. So it goes.
follows Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes "unstuck in time," and brings together different periods of Billy's life ~~ his time as an ill-fated soldier, his post-war optometry career, and a foray in an extraterrestrial zoo where he served as an exhibit ~~ with humor and deep insight.
was published on March 31, 1969 and became an instant and surprise hit. It spent sixteen weeks on the New York Times best seller list and went through five printings by July of 1969.
has not been without controversy. The American Library Association listed the book as the 46th most banned or challenged book of the first decade of the 21st century. "It was banned from Oakland County, Michigan public schools in 1972. The circuit judge there accused the novel of being 鈥渄epraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar, and anti-Christian.鈥� No wonder I loved it!
鈥淢y books are being thrown out of school libraries all over the country鈥攂ecause they鈥檙e supposedly obscene," Vonnegut told the Paris Review. "I鈥檝e seen letters to small-town newspapers that put in the same class with Deep Throat and Hustler magazine. How could anybody masturbate to ?鈥� I'm starting to like this Vonnegut character!
"In 2011, Wesley Scroggins, an assistant professor at Missouri State University, called on the Republic, MO school board to ban . He wrote in the local paper, 'This is a book that contains so much profane language, it would make a sailor blush with shame. The 鈥榝 word鈥� is plastered on almost every other page. The content ranges from naked men and women in cages together so that others can watch them having sex to God telling people that they better not mess with his loser, bum of a son, named Jesus Christ.' The board eventually voted 4-0 to remove the novel from the high school curriculum and its library."
In response to this ban, the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in Indianapolis gave away 150 free copies of to Republic, Missouri students who wanted to read it. As a kid who was not allowed to give book reports in front of the class because my reading choices were "morally questionable" I now officially love the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library!
is the strange tale of Billy Pilgrim. As I said previously, Billy becomes "unstuck" from the linear nature of time and takes us along on his journey. Billy Pilgrim is the anti-everyman while engaging in love, ethics, war, science, and aliens. 's main theme is man鈥檚 inhumanity to man throughout history.
> is not without its own heartfelt themes. It is most definitely an anti-war book. It is in many ways an anti-death book. It presents a philosophy questioning the purpose of life amidst determinism. Ayn Rand would have hated ~~ yet another reason to love this book.
is often insensitive and dark, and yet, you can't help but laugh at the world Vonnegut has created. is full of contradictions that only serve to make Vonnegut's points.
doesn't end with the death of Billy Pilgrim. That would far to simple an ending for something as brilliant as this; Billy lives on reliving this strange existence, learning and relearning the lessons of his life, unstuck from time.
So, have I revised my opinion of Vonnegut? Most definitely. Will I read more Vonnegut in the future? Yes, but selectively. Will I reread ? NEVER ...
October 6, 2020
Don鈥檛 be fooled: this is a short novel, but a pretty difficult one! Kurt Vonnegut, like his protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, witnessed long ago one of the most dreadful (and now almost forgotten) events during the crepuscular spring of 1945, when the Allies, pretending to eradicate Nazism, utterly destroyed the German city of Dresden and killed tens of thousands of civilians (comparable to the Hiroshima bombing). This event is the bleeding core of the novel. So it goes.
What is more bewildering about this book is its disjointed time structure: very soon in the story, Billy Pilgrim, a former prisoner of war, gets 鈥渦nstuck in time鈥�, thanks to the intervention of a Tralfamadorian flying saucer. He then keeps travelling in time from one paragraph to the next, going back and forth from the days before the Dresden destruction, to his childhood years, to his postwar life as an optometrist who is writing a book about Dresden and suffers a plane crash, to the time of the Vietnam War and Ronald Reagan (the present time when Vonnegut was writing), to a geodesic sphere on the far-off planet of Tralfamadore, to Times Square, and back to the firestorm of World War II.
In doing so, we get to know a gallery of quaint yet pitiful characters Billy meets along the way: Weary the bully, Lazzaro the enraged sadist, Campbell the American Nazi, Kilgore Trout the crook sci-fi writer, the Spinozist four-dimensional Tralfamadorians, Montana the porn star, the rich and fat Valencia who dies in her car, Derby the teacher who dies before a firing squad, Jesus Christ a 鈥渘obody鈥� who dies on a piece of wood. So it goes.
Added to this sense of disorientation (which indeed is that of Billy/Kurt), Vonnegut uses a dry, detached and fatalistic humour, when describing the most unspeakable, even unthinkable, moments of this war experience, that, if amusing, truly conveys a sense of utter despair. So it goes.
What is more bewildering about this book is its disjointed time structure: very soon in the story, Billy Pilgrim, a former prisoner of war, gets 鈥渦nstuck in time鈥�, thanks to the intervention of a Tralfamadorian flying saucer. He then keeps travelling in time from one paragraph to the next, going back and forth from the days before the Dresden destruction, to his childhood years, to his postwar life as an optometrist who is writing a book about Dresden and suffers a plane crash, to the time of the Vietnam War and Ronald Reagan (the present time when Vonnegut was writing), to a geodesic sphere on the far-off planet of Tralfamadore, to Times Square, and back to the firestorm of World War II.
In doing so, we get to know a gallery of quaint yet pitiful characters Billy meets along the way: Weary the bully, Lazzaro the enraged sadist, Campbell the American Nazi, Kilgore Trout the crook sci-fi writer, the Spinozist four-dimensional Tralfamadorians, Montana the porn star, the rich and fat Valencia who dies in her car, Derby the teacher who dies before a firing squad, Jesus Christ a 鈥渘obody鈥� who dies on a piece of wood. So it goes.
Added to this sense of disorientation (which indeed is that of Billy/Kurt), Vonnegut uses a dry, detached and fatalistic humour, when describing the most unspeakable, even unthinkable, moments of this war experience, that, if amusing, truly conveys a sense of utter despair. So it goes.
March 21, 2025
Life can be so unutterably sad.
That in a nutshell was my early life; and Kurt Vonnegut鈥檚 life.
And young Billy鈥檚 too.
But Vonnegut was American, and so was I (by birth at least) - and so is Billy Pilgrim.
And Americans always jazz up their sadness.
And that鈥檚 what they all did to get themselves through the War. Big Bands became the perfect anodyne to stark terror.
And zany behaviour - my own, Vonnegut鈥檚 and Billy鈥檚 - became the preferred personal way for American bullied innocents to jazz up their sadness.
***
Living in a meat cooler under a city while your country is Decimating that city can only leave a traumatic scar.
BIG TIME.
So you jazz it up big time yourself - you start to prefer your mini-vacations on Trafalmador over more mundane hot spots.
Like, for example, foxholes.
So it goes, with Kurt and Billy, and me, and with cringing, bullied kids like us EVERYWHERE. Because where there is carrion like us there the crows gather. And crows don鈥檛 even chew you before swallowing.
And they have gizzards to take care of your bones.
You know, had Kurt Vonnegut been a believer he might have considerably mollified his trauma.
Or even reading books by and about declared Aspies, like I do now, may have helped do the trick.
But alas, dear Kurt, back then they shot first and asked questions later.
If they鈥檇 have heard you were an Aspie back then they would have leered and just told you to keep marching and shut up.
No wonder their Jazz was in as much demand as a good, stiff drink back then.
For you too, Kurt - you picked up their old-time jazzy zaniness...
And just marched on into doomed Dresden -
Dreaming of long-lost Tralfamador.
That in a nutshell was my early life; and Kurt Vonnegut鈥檚 life.
And young Billy鈥檚 too.
But Vonnegut was American, and so was I (by birth at least) - and so is Billy Pilgrim.
And Americans always jazz up their sadness.
And that鈥檚 what they all did to get themselves through the War. Big Bands became the perfect anodyne to stark terror.
And zany behaviour - my own, Vonnegut鈥檚 and Billy鈥檚 - became the preferred personal way for American bullied innocents to jazz up their sadness.
***
Living in a meat cooler under a city while your country is Decimating that city can only leave a traumatic scar.
BIG TIME.
So you jazz it up big time yourself - you start to prefer your mini-vacations on Trafalmador over more mundane hot spots.
Like, for example, foxholes.
So it goes, with Kurt and Billy, and me, and with cringing, bullied kids like us EVERYWHERE. Because where there is carrion like us there the crows gather. And crows don鈥檛 even chew you before swallowing.
And they have gizzards to take care of your bones.
You know, had Kurt Vonnegut been a believer he might have considerably mollified his trauma.
Or even reading books by and about declared Aspies, like I do now, may have helped do the trick.
But alas, dear Kurt, back then they shot first and asked questions later.
If they鈥檇 have heard you were an Aspie back then they would have leered and just told you to keep marching and shut up.
No wonder their Jazz was in as much demand as a good, stiff drink back then.
For you too, Kurt - you picked up their old-time jazzy zaniness...
And just marched on into doomed Dresden -
Dreaming of long-lost Tralfamador.
May 19, 2025
A fun visit with cantankerous old Uncle Kurt.
Vonnegut is on a short list of my favorite authors and this is perhaps his most famous work. Not his best, but most recognizable. Billy Pilgrim is also one of his best characters.
(Kilgore Trout is his best).
I liked it as I like everything I have read of him. The recurring themes and characters, use of repetition for emphasis and comic relief, his irreverence and postmodern lack of sensitivity shine bright as ever here.
Vonnegut can be funny and grim on the same page, same sentence even, and not lose relevance or sincerity.
** 2018 - My wife and I visited Dresden, Germany this year and I could not help think of Vonnegut as a young POW who miraculously survived the firebombing and lived to tell the tale.
2019 reread
Perhaps his most celebrated and recognized this is also considered one of his best and I鈥檇 agree. This 1969 publication was nominated for a Hugo and a Nebula and was also a finalist for the National Book Award. I think maybe only Ursula K. LeGuin could also pull that off. This was made into a 1972 film directed by George Roy Hill (who also directed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting) and the film won the Hugo and the Cannes Grand Prix.
Billy Pilgrim has become 鈥渦nstuck鈥� in time. We all walk through life with a film of our past raging in our minds, but Vonnegut had Billy go one step further, in that he actually lives random moments in time, from his famous prison time in Dresden to his airplane crash, to his kidnapping and zoo sentence on Tralfamador.
Yes, Tralfamador. And we have another Kilgore Trout sighting, and also Elliot Rosewater and Howard W. Campbell Jr. We are surrounded and encompassed in the world Kurt made.
We must play a drinking game of sorts, every time death is mentioned we must say 鈥渟o it goes鈥�. In his introduction, we are told that this is to be a novel against war, an anti-war novel, and the ubiquitous phrase is used as an existential (and ironic) reminder that we live in each moment of time but that freewill is an intangible thing, as flimsy as dry rubber bands. The novel is also ripe with situational irony throughout, peppered with his inimitable dry humor and wit.
An observant reader will also note that when Pilgrim鈥檚 wife Valencia is in a car wreck, there is a bumper sticker that said, 鈥淩eagan for President鈥�. Since this was first published in 1969, seven years before Reagan would be mentioned in the Republican primaries and eleven years before he would be elected, one wonders if KV had some time travel experience.
An absolute must read for his fans, a good introduction to his work, and an excellent book for all readers.
*** 2025 reread -
Brilliant.
Funny.
Poignant.
Acerbic in its satire and playfully cutting with Vonnegut's rapier wit.
A book that is good across multiple genre's, this is a work that should be read.
Vonnegut is on a short list of my favorite authors and this is perhaps his most famous work. Not his best, but most recognizable. Billy Pilgrim is also one of his best characters.
(Kilgore Trout is his best).
I liked it as I like everything I have read of him. The recurring themes and characters, use of repetition for emphasis and comic relief, his irreverence and postmodern lack of sensitivity shine bright as ever here.
Vonnegut can be funny and grim on the same page, same sentence even, and not lose relevance or sincerity.
** 2018 - My wife and I visited Dresden, Germany this year and I could not help think of Vonnegut as a young POW who miraculously survived the firebombing and lived to tell the tale.
2019 reread
Perhaps his most celebrated and recognized this is also considered one of his best and I鈥檇 agree. This 1969 publication was nominated for a Hugo and a Nebula and was also a finalist for the National Book Award. I think maybe only Ursula K. LeGuin could also pull that off. This was made into a 1972 film directed by George Roy Hill (who also directed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting) and the film won the Hugo and the Cannes Grand Prix.
Billy Pilgrim has become 鈥渦nstuck鈥� in time. We all walk through life with a film of our past raging in our minds, but Vonnegut had Billy go one step further, in that he actually lives random moments in time, from his famous prison time in Dresden to his airplane crash, to his kidnapping and zoo sentence on Tralfamador.
Yes, Tralfamador. And we have another Kilgore Trout sighting, and also Elliot Rosewater and Howard W. Campbell Jr. We are surrounded and encompassed in the world Kurt made.
We must play a drinking game of sorts, every time death is mentioned we must say 鈥渟o it goes鈥�. In his introduction, we are told that this is to be a novel against war, an anti-war novel, and the ubiquitous phrase is used as an existential (and ironic) reminder that we live in each moment of time but that freewill is an intangible thing, as flimsy as dry rubber bands. The novel is also ripe with situational irony throughout, peppered with his inimitable dry humor and wit.
An observant reader will also note that when Pilgrim鈥檚 wife Valencia is in a car wreck, there is a bumper sticker that said, 鈥淩eagan for President鈥�. Since this was first published in 1969, seven years before Reagan would be mentioned in the Republican primaries and eleven years before he would be elected, one wonders if KV had some time travel experience.
An absolute must read for his fans, a good introduction to his work, and an excellent book for all readers.
*** 2025 reread -
Brilliant.
Funny.
Poignant.
Acerbic in its satire and playfully cutting with Vonnegut's rapier wit.
A book that is good across multiple genre's, this is a work that should be read.
July 31, 2021
(Book 375 from 1001 books) - Slaughterhouse-Five = The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death, Kurt Vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969) is a science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut about the World War II experiences and journeys through time of Billy Pilgrim, from his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant, to postwar and early years.
It is generally recognized as Vonnegut's most influential and popular work. A central event is Pilgrim's surviving the Allies' firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner-of-war. This was an event in Vonnegut's own life, and the novel is considered semi-autobiographical.
鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 乇賵夭 賳賵夭丿賴賲 賲丕賴 賲蹖 爻丕賱 2011賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳賴丕蹖 趩丕倬 卮丿賴 丿乇 丕蹖乇丕賳: 芦爻賱丕禺鈥屫з嗁� 卮賲丕乇賴 倬賳噩禄貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴: 讴賵乇鬲 賵賳賴鈥屭ж� 丕賳鬲卮丕乇丕鬲蹖賴丕: (乇賵卮賳诏乇丕賳 賵 賲胤丕賱毓丕鬲 夭賳丕賳)貨 鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮 賳賵夭丿賴賲 賲丕賴 賲蹖 爻丕賱2011賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 爻賱丕禺 禺丕賳賴 卮賲丕乇賴 倬賳噩貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴: 讴賵乇鬲 賵賳賴 诏丕鬲貨 賲鬲乇噩賲: 毓賱蹖 丕氐睾乇 亘賴乇丕賲蹖貙 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 乇賵卮賳诏乇丕賳貙 1372貨 丿乇 263氐貨 趩丕倬 丿蹖诏乇 1380貨 趩丕倬 亘毓丿蹖 爻丕賱1381貨 卮丕亘讴 9646751490貨 趩丕倬 卮卮賲 爻丕賱1389貨 賲賵囟賵毓: 噩賳诏 噩賴丕賳诏蹖乇 丿賵賲 - 丕夭 爻丕賱 1939賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 鬲丕 爻丕賱 1945賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 丕夭 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 丕蹖丕賱丕鬲 賲鬲丨丿賴 丌賲乇蹖讴丕 - 爻丿賴 20賲
讴賵乇鬲 賵賳賴 诏丕鬲: (夭丕丿乇賵夭: 蹖丕夭丿賴賲 賲丕賴 賳賵丕賲亘乇 爻丕賱 1922賲蹖賱丕丿蹖貙 丕蹖賳丿蹖丕賳丕倬賵賱蹖爻貙 丕蹖丕賱鬲 丕蹖賳丿蹖丕賳丕貙 丿乇诏匕卮鬲: 乇賵夭 蹖丕夭丿賴賲 賲丕賴 丌賵乇蹖賱 爻丕賱 2007賲蹖賱丕丿蹖) 丿乇 卮賴乇 芦賳蹖賵蹖賵乇讴貙 丕蹖丕賱鬲 賳蹖賵蹖賵乇讴禄貨 賲賱蹖鬲: 丌賲乇蹖讴丕蹖蹖貨 倬蹖卮賴: 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 丕夭 爻丕賱 1950賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 鬲丕 爻丕賱 2005賲蹖賱丕丿蹖貨 賴賲爻乇丕賳: 芦噩蹖賳 賲乇蹖 讴丕讴爻禄 丕夭 爻丕賱1945賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 鬲丕 爻丕賱1971賲蹖賱丕丿蹖貙 芦噩蹖賱 讴乇賲賳鬲夭 丕夭 爻丕賱 1979賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 鬲丕 爻丕賱 2007賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)貙 丿丕乇丕蹖 趩賴丕乇 賮乇夭賳丿貨 賵丕賱丿蹖賳: 芦讴賵乇鬲 賵丕賳诏丕鬲 爻蹖賳蹖賵乇貙 丕丿蹖鬲 賱蹖亘乇禄貨
丌孬丕乇: 乇賲丕賳鈥屬囏�: 鈥嵚聚屫з嗁堐� 禺賵丿賳賵丕夭 (1952賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦丌跇蹖乇賴丕蹖 賴蹖賵賱丕 (1959賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦卮亘 賲丕丿乇 (1961賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦诏賴賵丕乇賴 诏乇亘賴 (1963賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦禺丿丕 卮賲丕 乇丕 丨賮馗 讴賳丿貙 丌賯丕蹖 乇夭賵丕鬲乇 (1965賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦爻賱丕禺鈥屫з嗁� 卮賲丕乇賴 倬賳噩 (1969賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦氐亘丨丕賳賴 賯賴乇賲丕賳丕賳 (1973賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦丕爻賱倬 丕爻鬲蹖讴 (1976賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦賲丨亘賵爻 (1979賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦賲噩賲毓 丕賱噩夭丕蹖乇 诏丕賱丕倬丕诏賵爻 (1985賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦乇蹖卮 丌亘蹖 (1987賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦夭賲丕賳 賱乇夭賴 (1997賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦賲乇丿 亘蹖鈥屬堌焚� (2005賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄. 賲噩賲賵毓賴 丿丕爻鬲丕賳鈥屬囏�: 芦賯賳丕乇蹖 丿乇 禺丕賳賴 诏乇亘賴 (1961賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦亘賴 禺丕賳賴 賲蹖賲賵賳 禺賵卮 丌賲丿蹖丿 (1967賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦丕賳賮蹖賴 颅丿丕賳 亘丕诏賵賲亘賵 (1999賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦禺丿丕 卮賲丕 乇丕 丨賮馗 讴賳丿貙 丿讴鬲乇 讴賵乇讴蹖丕賳 (1999賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦噩賵噩賵 乇丕 賳蹖诏丕 (2009賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄. 賳賲丕蹖卮鈥屬嗀з呝�: 芦鬲賵賱丿鬲 賲亘丕乇讴 賵賳丿丕 噩賵賳 (1971賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄.貨
讴賵乇鬲 賵丕賳诏丕鬲 噩賵賳蹖賵乇貙 丿乇 乇卮鬲賴 夭蹖爻鬲鈥� 卮蹖賲蹖貙 丕夭 丿丕賳卮诏丕賴 芦讴賵乇賳賱禄 賮丕乇睾鈥� 丕賱鬲丨氐蹖賱 卮丿賳丿貙 丿乇 丕乇鬲卮 賳丕賲鈥屬嗁堐屫驰� 讴乇丿賳丿貙 賵 亘乇丕蹖 賳亘乇丿 丿乇 噩賳诏 噩賴丕賳蹖 丿賵賲 亘賴 芦丕乇賵倬丕禄 丕毓夭丕賲 卮丿賳丿貨 丕蹖卮丕賳 禺蹖賱蹖 夭賵丿 亘賴 丿爻鬲 賳蹖乇賵賴丕蹖 芦丌賱賲丕賳蹖禄 丕爻蹖乇貙 賵 丿乇 芦丿乇爻丿賳禄 夭賳丿丕賳蹖 卮丿賳丿貙 倬爻 丕夭 倬丕蹖丕賳 噩賳诏 賵 亘丕夭诏卮鬲 亘賴 芦丕蹖丕賱丕鬲 賲鬲丨丿賴 丌賲乇蹖讴丕禄貙 丿乇 芦丿丕賳卮诏丕賴 卮蹖讴丕诏賵禄 亘賴 鬲丨氐蹖賱 芦賲乇丿賲鈥屫促嗀ж驰屄� 倬乇丿丕禺鬲賳丿貙 賵 爻倬爻 亘賴 毓賳賵丕賳 鬲亘賱蹖睾丕鬲鈥屭嗃� 丿乇 卮乇讴鬲 芦噩賳乇丕賱 丕賱讴鬲乇蹖讴禄 賲卮睾賵賱 亘賴 讴丕乇 卮丿賳丿貙 鬲丕 爻丕賱1951賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 讴賴 亘丕 賳賴丕蹖蹖 卮丿賳 丕賳鬲卮丕乇 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 丕蹖卮丕賳貙 芦倬蹖丕賳賵蹖 禺賵丿讴丕乇禄貙 丌賳 讴丕乇 乇丕 鬲乇讴 讴乇丿賳丿 賵 鬲賲丕賲鈥� 賵賯鬲 賲卮睾賵賱 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏蹖 卮丿賳丿貨 丌孬丕乇 丕蹖卮丕賳 鬲乇讴蹖亘蹖 丕夭 胤賳夭 爻蹖丕賴貙 丿乇 賲丕蹖賴鈥� 賴丕蹖 毓賱賲蹖鈥� 鬲禺蹖賱蹖 賴颅爻鬲賳丿貨
丕夭 丌孬丕乇 丕蹖卮丕賳: 芦诏賴賵丕乇賴 诏乇亘賴禄貙 芦爻賱丕禺鈥屫з嗁� 卮賲丕乇賴 倬賳噩禄 賵 芦氐亘丨丕賳賴 賯賴乇賲丕賳丕賳禄 亘蹖卮鬲乇 賲賵乇丿 爻鬲丕蹖卮 賯乇丕乇 诏乇賮鬲賴鈥� 丕賳丿.貨 丿乇 爻丕賱1999賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 丌爻鬲乇賵卅蹖丿 蹖丕 爻蹖丕乇讴 25399貙 乇丕貙 亘乇丕蹖 亘夭乇诏丿丕卮鬲 丕蹖卮丕賳 芦賵賳賴 诏丕鬲禄 賳丕賲蹖丿賳丿.貨
趩讴蹖丿賴 丕蹖賳 丿丕爻鬲丕賳: 芦亘蹖賱蹖 倬蹖賱诏乇蹖賲禄貙 賯賴乇賲丕賳 丿丕爻鬲丕賳貙 丿乇 夭賲丕賳 禺丿賲鬲 禺賵丿 丿乇 丌乇鬲卮 芦丌賲乇蹖讴丕禄 丿乇 噩賳诏 噩賴丕賳诏蹖乇 丿賵賲貙 賯丕亘賱蹖鬲 丨乇讴鬲 丿乇 夭賲丕賳 乇丕 倬蹖丿丕 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗀� 賵 丕夭 丌賳 賱丨馗賴 亘賴鈥� 胤賵乇 賴賲夭賲丕賳 丿乇 夭賲蹖賳貙 賵 丿乇 蹖讴 爻蹖丕乇賴 蹖 丿賵乇貙 亘賴 賳丕賲 芦鬲乇丕賱賮丕賲丕丿賵乇禄貙 夭賳丿诏蹖 禺賵蹖卮 乇丕 倬蹖 賲蹖鈥屭屫必� 丕賵 亘賴 賮賱爻賮賴 爻乇賳賵卮鬲 芦鬲乇丕賱賮丕賲丕丿賵乇禄蹖 賴丕 亘丕賵乇 倬蹖丿丕 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗀� 丌賳賴丕 賯丕丿乇 亘賴 丿蹖丿賳 賲丨蹖胤 禺賵丿 丿乇 趩賴丕乇 亘毓丿 賴爻鬲賳丿貨 亘賳丕亘乇丕蹖賳 丕夭 賴賲賴 蹖 乇禺丿丕丿賴丕蹖 亘诏匕卮鬲賴 賵 丌蹖賳丿賴 亘丕禺亘乇 賴爻鬲賳丿貨 賵丕讴賳卮 丕賵 亘賴 乇禺丿丕丿賴丕蹖 賳丕禺賵卮丕蹖賳丿蹖 讴賴 乇禺 賲蹖鈥屫囏� 诏賮鬲賳 丕蹖賳 噩賲賱賴 丕爻鬲: 芦亘賱賴! 乇爻賲 乇賵夭诏丕乇 趩賳蹖賳 丕爻鬲.禄貨
鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 31/05/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 07/05/1400賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969) is a science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut about the World War II experiences and journeys through time of Billy Pilgrim, from his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant, to postwar and early years.
It is generally recognized as Vonnegut's most influential and popular work. A central event is Pilgrim's surviving the Allies' firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner-of-war. This was an event in Vonnegut's own life, and the novel is considered semi-autobiographical.
鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮: 乇賵夭 賳賵夭丿賴賲 賲丕賴 賲蹖 爻丕賱 2011賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳賴丕蹖 趩丕倬 卮丿賴 丿乇 丕蹖乇丕賳: 芦爻賱丕禺鈥屫з嗁� 卮賲丕乇賴 倬賳噩禄貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴: 讴賵乇鬲 賵賳賴鈥屭ж� 丕賳鬲卮丕乇丕鬲蹖賴丕: (乇賵卮賳诏乇丕賳 賵 賲胤丕賱毓丕鬲 夭賳丕賳)貨 鬲丕乇蹖禺 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 禺賵丕賳卮 賳賵夭丿賴賲 賲丕賴 賲蹖 爻丕賱2011賲蹖賱丕丿蹖
毓賳賵丕賳: 爻賱丕禺 禺丕賳賴 卮賲丕乇賴 倬賳噩貨 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴: 讴賵乇鬲 賵賳賴 诏丕鬲貨 賲鬲乇噩賲: 毓賱蹖 丕氐睾乇 亘賴乇丕賲蹖貙 鬲賴乇丕賳貙 乇賵卮賳诏乇丕賳貙 1372貨 丿乇 263氐貨 趩丕倬 丿蹖诏乇 1380貨 趩丕倬 亘毓丿蹖 爻丕賱1381貨 卮丕亘讴 9646751490貨 趩丕倬 卮卮賲 爻丕賱1389貨 賲賵囟賵毓: 噩賳诏 噩賴丕賳诏蹖乇 丿賵賲 - 丕夭 爻丕賱 1939賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 鬲丕 爻丕賱 1945賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 丕夭 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏丕賳 丕蹖丕賱丕鬲 賲鬲丨丿賴 丌賲乇蹖讴丕 - 爻丿賴 20賲
讴賵乇鬲 賵賳賴 诏丕鬲: (夭丕丿乇賵夭: 蹖丕夭丿賴賲 賲丕賴 賳賵丕賲亘乇 爻丕賱 1922賲蹖賱丕丿蹖貙 丕蹖賳丿蹖丕賳丕倬賵賱蹖爻貙 丕蹖丕賱鬲 丕蹖賳丿蹖丕賳丕貙 丿乇诏匕卮鬲: 乇賵夭 蹖丕夭丿賴賲 賲丕賴 丌賵乇蹖賱 爻丕賱 2007賲蹖賱丕丿蹖) 丿乇 卮賴乇 芦賳蹖賵蹖賵乇讴貙 丕蹖丕賱鬲 賳蹖賵蹖賵乇讴禄貨 賲賱蹖鬲: 丌賲乇蹖讴丕蹖蹖貨 倬蹖卮賴: 賳賵蹖爻賳丿賴 丕夭 爻丕賱 1950賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 鬲丕 爻丕賱 2005賲蹖賱丕丿蹖貨 賴賲爻乇丕賳: 芦噩蹖賳 賲乇蹖 讴丕讴爻禄 丕夭 爻丕賱1945賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 鬲丕 爻丕賱1971賲蹖賱丕丿蹖貙 芦噩蹖賱 讴乇賲賳鬲夭 丕夭 爻丕賱 1979賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 鬲丕 爻丕賱 2007賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)貙 丿丕乇丕蹖 趩賴丕乇 賮乇夭賳丿貨 賵丕賱丿蹖賳: 芦讴賵乇鬲 賵丕賳诏丕鬲 爻蹖賳蹖賵乇貙 丕丿蹖鬲 賱蹖亘乇禄貨
丌孬丕乇: 乇賲丕賳鈥屬囏�: 鈥嵚聚屫з嗁堐� 禺賵丿賳賵丕夭 (1952賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦丌跇蹖乇賴丕蹖 賴蹖賵賱丕 (1959賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦卮亘 賲丕丿乇 (1961賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦诏賴賵丕乇賴 诏乇亘賴 (1963賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦禺丿丕 卮賲丕 乇丕 丨賮馗 讴賳丿貙 丌賯丕蹖 乇夭賵丕鬲乇 (1965賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦爻賱丕禺鈥屫з嗁� 卮賲丕乇賴 倬賳噩 (1969賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦氐亘丨丕賳賴 賯賴乇賲丕賳丕賳 (1973賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦丕爻賱倬 丕爻鬲蹖讴 (1976賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦賲丨亘賵爻 (1979賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦賲噩賲毓 丕賱噩夭丕蹖乇 诏丕賱丕倬丕诏賵爻 (1985賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦乇蹖卮 丌亘蹖 (1987賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦夭賲丕賳 賱乇夭賴 (1997賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦賲乇丿 亘蹖鈥屬堌焚� (2005賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄. 賲噩賲賵毓賴 丿丕爻鬲丕賳鈥屬囏�: 芦賯賳丕乇蹖 丿乇 禺丕賳賴 诏乇亘賴 (1961賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦亘賴 禺丕賳賴 賲蹖賲賵賳 禺賵卮 丌賲丿蹖丿 (1967賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦丕賳賮蹖賴 颅丿丕賳 亘丕诏賵賲亘賵 (1999賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦禺丿丕 卮賲丕 乇丕 丨賮馗 讴賳丿貙 丿讴鬲乇 讴賵乇讴蹖丕賳 (1999賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄貙 芦噩賵噩賵 乇丕 賳蹖诏丕 (2009賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄. 賳賲丕蹖卮鈥屬嗀з呝�: 芦鬲賵賱丿鬲 賲亘丕乇讴 賵賳丿丕 噩賵賳 (1971賲蹖賱丕丿蹖)禄.貨
讴賵乇鬲 賵丕賳诏丕鬲 噩賵賳蹖賵乇貙 丿乇 乇卮鬲賴 夭蹖爻鬲鈥� 卮蹖賲蹖貙 丕夭 丿丕賳卮诏丕賴 芦讴賵乇賳賱禄 賮丕乇睾鈥� 丕賱鬲丨氐蹖賱 卮丿賳丿貙 丿乇 丕乇鬲卮 賳丕賲鈥屬嗁堐屫驰� 讴乇丿賳丿貙 賵 亘乇丕蹖 賳亘乇丿 丿乇 噩賳诏 噩賴丕賳蹖 丿賵賲 亘賴 芦丕乇賵倬丕禄 丕毓夭丕賲 卮丿賳丿貨 丕蹖卮丕賳 禺蹖賱蹖 夭賵丿 亘賴 丿爻鬲 賳蹖乇賵賴丕蹖 芦丌賱賲丕賳蹖禄 丕爻蹖乇貙 賵 丿乇 芦丿乇爻丿賳禄 夭賳丿丕賳蹖 卮丿賳丿貙 倬爻 丕夭 倬丕蹖丕賳 噩賳诏 賵 亘丕夭诏卮鬲 亘賴 芦丕蹖丕賱丕鬲 賲鬲丨丿賴 丌賲乇蹖讴丕禄貙 丿乇 芦丿丕賳卮诏丕賴 卮蹖讴丕诏賵禄 亘賴 鬲丨氐蹖賱 芦賲乇丿賲鈥屫促嗀ж驰屄� 倬乇丿丕禺鬲賳丿貙 賵 爻倬爻 亘賴 毓賳賵丕賳 鬲亘賱蹖睾丕鬲鈥屭嗃� 丿乇 卮乇讴鬲 芦噩賳乇丕賱 丕賱讴鬲乇蹖讴禄 賲卮睾賵賱 亘賴 讴丕乇 卮丿賳丿貙 鬲丕 爻丕賱1951賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 讴賴 亘丕 賳賴丕蹖蹖 卮丿賳 丕賳鬲卮丕乇 賳禺爻鬲蹖賳 讴鬲丕亘 丕蹖卮丕賳貙 芦倬蹖丕賳賵蹖 禺賵丿讴丕乇禄貙 丌賳 讴丕乇 乇丕 鬲乇讴 讴乇丿賳丿 賵 鬲賲丕賲鈥� 賵賯鬲 賲卮睾賵賱 賳賵蹖爻賳丿诏蹖 卮丿賳丿貨 丌孬丕乇 丕蹖卮丕賳 鬲乇讴蹖亘蹖 丕夭 胤賳夭 爻蹖丕賴貙 丿乇 賲丕蹖賴鈥� 賴丕蹖 毓賱賲蹖鈥� 鬲禺蹖賱蹖 賴颅爻鬲賳丿貨
丕夭 丌孬丕乇 丕蹖卮丕賳: 芦诏賴賵丕乇賴 诏乇亘賴禄貙 芦爻賱丕禺鈥屫з嗁� 卮賲丕乇賴 倬賳噩禄 賵 芦氐亘丨丕賳賴 賯賴乇賲丕賳丕賳禄 亘蹖卮鬲乇 賲賵乇丿 爻鬲丕蹖卮 賯乇丕乇 诏乇賮鬲賴鈥� 丕賳丿.貨 丿乇 爻丕賱1999賲蹖賱丕丿蹖 丌爻鬲乇賵卅蹖丿 蹖丕 爻蹖丕乇讴 25399貙 乇丕貙 亘乇丕蹖 亘夭乇诏丿丕卮鬲 丕蹖卮丕賳 芦賵賳賴 诏丕鬲禄 賳丕賲蹖丿賳丿.貨
趩讴蹖丿賴 丕蹖賳 丿丕爻鬲丕賳: 芦亘蹖賱蹖 倬蹖賱诏乇蹖賲禄貙 賯賴乇賲丕賳 丿丕爻鬲丕賳貙 丿乇 夭賲丕賳 禺丿賲鬲 禺賵丿 丿乇 丌乇鬲卮 芦丌賲乇蹖讴丕禄 丿乇 噩賳诏 噩賴丕賳诏蹖乇 丿賵賲貙 賯丕亘賱蹖鬲 丨乇讴鬲 丿乇 夭賲丕賳 乇丕 倬蹖丿丕 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗀� 賵 丕夭 丌賳 賱丨馗賴 亘賴鈥� 胤賵乇 賴賲夭賲丕賳 丿乇 夭賲蹖賳貙 賵 丿乇 蹖讴 爻蹖丕乇賴 蹖 丿賵乇貙 亘賴 賳丕賲 芦鬲乇丕賱賮丕賲丕丿賵乇禄貙 夭賳丿诏蹖 禺賵蹖卮 乇丕 倬蹖 賲蹖鈥屭屫必� 丕賵 亘賴 賮賱爻賮賴 爻乇賳賵卮鬲 芦鬲乇丕賱賮丕賲丕丿賵乇禄蹖 賴丕 亘丕賵乇 倬蹖丿丕 賲蹖鈥屭┵嗀� 丌賳賴丕 賯丕丿乇 亘賴 丿蹖丿賳 賲丨蹖胤 禺賵丿 丿乇 趩賴丕乇 亘毓丿 賴爻鬲賳丿貨 亘賳丕亘乇丕蹖賳 丕夭 賴賲賴 蹖 乇禺丿丕丿賴丕蹖 亘诏匕卮鬲賴 賵 丌蹖賳丿賴 亘丕禺亘乇 賴爻鬲賳丿貨 賵丕讴賳卮 丕賵 亘賴 乇禺丿丕丿賴丕蹖 賳丕禺賵卮丕蹖賳丿蹖 讴賴 乇禺 賲蹖鈥屫囏� 诏賮鬲賳 丕蹖賳 噩賲賱賴 丕爻鬲: 芦亘賱賴! 乇爻賲 乇賵夭诏丕乇 趩賳蹖賳 丕爻鬲.禄貨
鬲丕乇蹖禺 亘賴賳诏丕賲 乇爻丕賳蹖 31/05/1399賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 07/05/1400賴噩乇蹖 禺賵乇卮蹖丿蹖貨 丕. 卮乇亘蹖丕賳蹖
April 13, 2022
鈥淎nd Lot鈥檚 wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.鈥�Listen:
When you find yourself in the middle of horror, enormity that defies rational understanding, and survive despite everything, can you ever leave that place and that time behind? Can you ever let it go, and can it ever set you free? Can you help looking back, like Lot鈥檚 wife, at the pain and destruction that are calling to you through time and distance? Can you ever?
鈥淚t is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds.
And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like 鈥淧oo-tee-weet?鈥�
鈥淎ll this happened, more or less.鈥� In 1945, at the end of brutal World War II, the Allies firebombed the German city of Dresden and almost 25,000 people died in the inferno. Kurt Vonnegut was in the city as a prisoner of war, and years later wrote his most famous book about Billy Pilgrim, an American POW in Dresden who lives through the war and survives Dresden bombing, and gets 鈥渦nstuck in time鈥�, moving between different periods of his life, seeing 鈥渉is memory of the future鈥� through the disorienting now, always now.
鈥淎mong the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.鈥�
It鈥檚 a book that to me defies explanations. It鈥檚 science fiction inasmuch as there are aliens that see all the time simultaneously. It鈥檚 an anti-war book insomuch as it shows the absolute atrocity and monstrosity of mindless destruction. 鈥淪o it goes,鈥� continues the constant refrain 鈥� and yes, so it does.
And it is a book about trauma of war that stays with you no matter what else happens, because after such enormity how can life ever be the same? How can you ever come to grips with things that happened? War is absurd, and absurdity becomes reality.
鈥淒erby described the incredible artificial weather that Earthlings sometimes create for other Earthlings when they don鈥檛 want those other Earthlings to inhabit Earth any more. Shells were bursting in the treetops with terrific bangs, he said, showering down knives and needles and razorblades. Little lumps of lead in copper jackets were crisscrossing the woods under the shellbursts, zipping along much faster than sound.鈥�
This book combines farce and seriousness, surreal experiences and crushing reality, and is perfect example of comedy and tragedy combining into something much greater than the sum of its parts.
鈥淲as it awful?鈥�
鈥淪ometimes.鈥� A crazy thought now occurred to Billy. The truth of it startled him. It would make a good epitaph for Billy Pilgrim鈥攁nd for me, too.鈥�
Vonnegut鈥檚 language isn鈥檛 wasted in a single line here. It鈥檚 economical and spare; it says just as much with words on the page as with the words left unspoken but implied. The sentences are short, the syntax is simple, but beyond the deceiving simplicity lies the world of complex thought and feelings it evokes in the reader. And that quiet feeling of detachment punctuated with 鈥淪o it goes鈥� at the moments of death affected me more than any number of likable identifiable-with characters of other books have. After all, 鈥淭here are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.鈥�
It does it to me, this book. It gets to me.
鈥淧eople aren鈥檛 supposed to look back. I鈥檓 certainly not going to do it anymore.
I鈥檝e finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun.
This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt.鈥�
5 stars.
鈥斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌�
鈥斺赌斺赌斺赌斺赌�
Buddy read with Dennis.
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April 30, 2025
Now for something completely different , stating it mildly ...Billy Pilgrim is not just another time travelling man, kidnapped by aliens from the unknown planet Tralfamadore and put in their zoo, he's an eyewitness to the destruction of Dresden, during World War Two. Our Billy an optometrist, (eye doctor) marries the boss's slightly overweight daughter Valencia (who no one else wanted, people are so unkind) . The couple have two disrespectful children, Barbara and Robert, the truth that he becomes very rich through his nuptials, doesn't make him a bad guy, lucky, I guess is the proper adjective . Billy is no prize either , a tall, skinny weakling, an ordinary looking man , with a peculiar tendency for nervous breakdowns... welcome to modern life. The only unique thing about him, is the fact he visits rather reluctantly different stages of his life, by way of an unexplained and altogether involuntary power , by time travel. Yet for a while at least, life doesn't become endless and boring, still not as much fun as you'd think, repeating situations again and again, ouch . IT DOESN'T MATTER HE'D RATHER NOT GO...Past, Present and Future, are all the same to poor Pilgrim, he can be at his daughter's wedding and in a few moments, be back as a P.O.W. in Dresden, Germany on February 13th, 1945, when 1,200 allied bombers from England and America, dropped thousands of explosives on the city. Causing fires to spread quickly and kill (fry) thousands, anywhere from 30,000 to 130,000 humans, nobody will ever know the exact amount. "So it goes ". Then poor Billy is back in Illium, New York, talking to his only friend, Kilgore Trout an unsuccessful science fiction writer, (75 unread novels) I understand you can get his books at the local library, if you are diligent . The cosmic flying saucer that took Mr. Pilgrim secretly to that strange world...(not sure if it's the right word for the weird planet) millions of light years away, through a wormhole, did Billy a favor. The very curious people of Tralfamadore like to watch and how. They are not embarrassed by any kind of activity, providing him with a young, beautiful, and eager movie starlet Montana Wildhack, for the prisoner. The salacious activity gives the inhabitants of this planet many hours of entertainment...Billy will never really die, he will always travel through time and space forever."So it goes".
October 18, 2018
here it is. yet another book that i didnt read in school but decided to pick up later in life. and i think this is one of the rare instances where i think i would have benefited from some educational instruction to supplement my reading, because i did not seem to get this on my own.
i mean, on a surface level, i understood the anti-war tones and commentary on society in general, but anything deeper than that eluded me. so taking this at face value, i think its safe to say this is a really weird book. lol.
also, i wasnt really a fan at how women were portrayed in this. they were always noted as being ugly, or dull, or only good for sex. and i know many people might say thats vonneguts signature satire, but it definitely rubbed me the wrong way.
overall, i get that this story evokes much needed discussion on several important issues. however, this didnt impact me as significantly as it was probably meant to. so it goes鈥�
鈫� 2.5 stars
i mean, on a surface level, i understood the anti-war tones and commentary on society in general, but anything deeper than that eluded me. so taking this at face value, i think its safe to say this is a really weird book. lol.
also, i wasnt really a fan at how women were portrayed in this. they were always noted as being ugly, or dull, or only good for sex. and i know many people might say thats vonneguts signature satire, but it definitely rubbed me the wrong way.
overall, i get that this story evokes much needed discussion on several important issues. however, this didnt impact me as significantly as it was probably meant to. so it goes鈥�
鈫� 2.5 stars
April 1, 2025
Am I glad I read this book?
Yes.
Did I frequently wish I was reading something else while reading this book?
Yes.
Slaughter-House Five is...
Well, Kurt Vonnegut tells us a story about the firebombing of Dresden during WWII, which he lived through as a soldier. But this isn't about him. Oh, no.
It's about this guy, Billy. Who has maybe been abducted by aliens, and maybe continually slips through time.
But definitely was in World War II.
Maybe.
It's a non-linear story, with an unreliable narrator, and strange subject matter.
However, while I was reading it, I realized that even though Billy's life didn't make much sense, Vonnegut was still managing to say almost profound things about war. And life. About things you sort of think about all the time, but don't really think about.
Does that make sense?
No? Well, neither does this book.
So it goes.
2025
I listened to the Audible Audiobook with James Franco as the narrator for my second go-round with this one. Several times I wished that they had chosen someone different because I just didn't care for the way he read it, and I didn't think his accents (especially the British accents) were very good.
It was still quite an experience to listen to Vonnegut's semi-autobiographical account of what it feels like to come unstuck in time. What war is like for the people with boots on the ground. His experience wasn't everyone's experience, but it was a version of his experience.
A weird version, but an important version.
Recommended.
Yes.
Did I frequently wish I was reading something else while reading this book?
Yes.
Slaughter-House Five is...
Well, Kurt Vonnegut tells us a story about the firebombing of Dresden during WWII, which he lived through as a soldier. But this isn't about him. Oh, no.
It's about this guy, Billy. Who has maybe been abducted by aliens, and maybe continually slips through time.
But definitely was in World War II.
Maybe.
It's a non-linear story, with an unreliable narrator, and strange subject matter.
However, while I was reading it, I realized that even though Billy's life didn't make much sense, Vonnegut was still managing to say almost profound things about war. And life. About things you sort of think about all the time, but don't really think about.
Does that make sense?
No? Well, neither does this book.
So it goes.
2025
I listened to the Audible Audiobook with James Franco as the narrator for my second go-round with this one. Several times I wished that they had chosen someone different because I just didn't care for the way he read it, and I didn't think his accents (especially the British accents) were very good.
It was still quite an experience to listen to Vonnegut's semi-autobiographical account of what it feels like to come unstuck in time. What war is like for the people with boots on the ground. His experience wasn't everyone's experience, but it was a version of his experience.
A weird version, but an important version.
Recommended.
July 20, 2016
I finally read Vonnegut. I finally read a war novel. And after a long time I finally read something with so many GR ratings and a decent number of reviews which is precisely the reason I have nothing much to add to the already expressed views here. So I urge you to indulge me to state a personal anecdote. Thank You.
My Grandfather was a POW during Indo-China war and remained in confinement for some six months. By the time I got to know about it I had already watched too many movies and crammed endless number of answers about when and where such n such war was fought. But I was na茂ve and let鈥檚 assume innocent and someone who was yet to learn to ask the right questions. So the fact that someone so close in the family had witness something I only read in schoolbooks was utterly fascinating for me. Thus began my streak of stupid questions.
Me: Did you kill someone? Did they torture you? Did you dig some sort of tunnel to escape? And so on.
My Grandpa gave this hearty laugh he is famous for and said that I鈥檓 missing one important question: Why the war happened at first place? I thought for a while and answered: Because it always happens.
I can鈥檛 recall properly what he replied to that but it was something on the lines of this: I wish the answer changes when you鈥檒l grow up because as of now that鈥檚 exactly how it is. War always happens.
With books like Slaughterhouse-Five (Schlachth枚f-f眉nf), it鈥檚 not the writing which matters but simply the ideas and thoughts it carries which transgresses the literary boundaries and create a place in the heart of the readers as a humble reminder that Love happens, Hate happens, Life happens, Death happens, Peace happens, War happens and sometimes Shit happens.
April 4, 2020
This was really weirdly fantastic.
Re-read in 2020 as book 29 of 30 for my 30 day reading challenge.
Re-read in 2020 as book 29 of 30 for my 30 day reading challenge.
September 12, 2018
This book is an absolute masterpiece and it makes it clear in every single sentence. I think it is best to go into it without knowing too much about the plot. You just got to take it as it comes, so to say.
Before reading, I was worried that I might have trouble with the writing style. English isn't my first language and the older a book is, the more trouble I seem to have with the writing (because of obsolete words, unusual sentence structures, ect.). However, my worry was totally for nothing in this case. I found the entire book very easy to read (which is even more surprising considering the heavy topics that get dealt with). I also loved how there were many little passages and repetitions of certain phrases. It seemed fitting somehow.
I would have never guessed that the blend of a war story with Science Fiction could work so well! It gives it so much room for analysing and interpretation.
Honestly, I could write a thousand more reasons why I loved this book, but in the end I would just repeat myself, because I seriously just loved every.single.little.thing! I highly recommend everyone to give it a shot.
Before reading, I was worried that I might have trouble with the writing style. English isn't my first language and the older a book is, the more trouble I seem to have with the writing (because of obsolete words, unusual sentence structures, ect.). However, my worry was totally for nothing in this case. I found the entire book very easy to read (which is even more surprising considering the heavy topics that get dealt with). I also loved how there were many little passages and repetitions of certain phrases. It seemed fitting somehow.
I would have never guessed that the blend of a war story with Science Fiction could work so well! It gives it so much room for analysing and interpretation.
Honestly, I could write a thousand more reasons why I loved this book, but in the end I would just repeat myself, because I seriously just loved every.single.little.thing! I highly recommend everyone to give it a shot.
June 26, 2019
The God of Accidents
Only God knows all of time as if it were the same instant; only God can annihilate the Universe; only God knows our innermost thoughts: so contends Judaic, Christian, and Muslim theology. For God, therefore, there is no cause and effect; everything just is. And because there is no cause and effect, there is no issue of free will. Free will is an idea created by human beings who can't imagine any other way to escape the mechanical inevitability of causality.
In Slaughterhouse 5, the alien race of Tralfamadorians are not just god-like in their ability to transit the Universe, they are collectively God in their power over time and existence itself. The book is a subtle and very clever theology that has fundamental implications for morality and ethics.
Billy Pilgrim is the recipient of important revelations from the divine Tralfamadorians. The first revelation is that although death is a real certainty, it doesn't matter because one can revisit moments in one's life ad infinitum; resurrection is part of existence.
Second, God is neither external to the Universe, nor pantheistically distributed throughout it; rather God is a very discrete presence in the Universe, as well as in charge of it. Importantly for the fate of everyone, God is also as hapless as human beings; he can't change himself or his fate.
The most significant revelation is that Kilgore Trout, the famous science fiction writer and newspaper delivery boss, is God's prophet, whose every pronouncement is sarcastic.
It's difficult to say what portion of these revelations come directly from the divine source and what portion comes through Kilgore Trout's explorations into Billy's consciousness. Nevertheless the bottom line is clear: 鈥淓verything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does.鈥� In other words, life is so screwy that it can neither be analysed nor rationalised. Not the best of all possible worlds, but the only one possible. Accident willing.
Only God knows all of time as if it were the same instant; only God can annihilate the Universe; only God knows our innermost thoughts: so contends Judaic, Christian, and Muslim theology. For God, therefore, there is no cause and effect; everything just is. And because there is no cause and effect, there is no issue of free will. Free will is an idea created by human beings who can't imagine any other way to escape the mechanical inevitability of causality.
In Slaughterhouse 5, the alien race of Tralfamadorians are not just god-like in their ability to transit the Universe, they are collectively God in their power over time and existence itself. The book is a subtle and very clever theology that has fundamental implications for morality and ethics.
Billy Pilgrim is the recipient of important revelations from the divine Tralfamadorians. The first revelation is that although death is a real certainty, it doesn't matter because one can revisit moments in one's life ad infinitum; resurrection is part of existence.
Second, God is neither external to the Universe, nor pantheistically distributed throughout it; rather God is a very discrete presence in the Universe, as well as in charge of it. Importantly for the fate of everyone, God is also as hapless as human beings; he can't change himself or his fate.
The most significant revelation is that Kilgore Trout, the famous science fiction writer and newspaper delivery boss, is God's prophet, whose every pronouncement is sarcastic.
It's difficult to say what portion of these revelations come directly from the divine source and what portion comes through Kilgore Trout's explorations into Billy's consciousness. Nevertheless the bottom line is clear: 鈥淓verything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does.鈥� In other words, life is so screwy that it can neither be analysed nor rationalised. Not the best of all possible worlds, but the only one possible. Accident willing.
October 14, 2019
讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 丿賵 亘丕乇 禺賵賳丿賲. 蹖賴 亘丕乇 禺賱丕氐賴贁 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 讴賴 亘乇丕蹖 乇丕丿蹖賵 鬲賳馗蹖賲 卮丿賴 亘賵丿貙 亘丕 丕噩乇丕蹖 亘賴乇賵夭 乇囟賵蹖 诏賵卮 丿丕丿賲. 賵 丨爻 讴乇丿賲 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 亘蹖 賳馗蹖乇鬲乇 丕夭 丕賵賳賴 讴賴 賮賯胤 丕噩乇丕蹖 乇丕丿蹖賵蹖蹖卮 乇賵 诏賵卮 亘丿賲. 亘賴 禺丕胤乇 賴賲蹖賳 亘乇丕蹖 鬲賵賱丿 亘乇丕丿乇賲 讴鬲丕亘賵 亘乇丕卮 禺乇蹖丿賲. 禺賵丿卮 賴賳賵夭 讴賴 賴賳賵夭賴 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 賳禺賵賳丿賴 丕賲丕 賲賳 賴賲賵賳 賲賵賯毓 禺賵賳丿賲卮.
讴鬲丕亘 亘蹖 賳馗蹖乇賴. 賱丨賳 胤賳夭 亘乇丕蹖 鬲賵氐蹖賮 讴卮鬲丕乇賴丕蹖 賵丨卮鬲賳丕讴貙 鬲乇讴蹖亘 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 噩賳诏 亘丕 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 毓賱賲蹖 鬲禺蹖賱蹖 賵 賮丕賳鬲夭蹖貙 賵 賵賯丕蹖毓 賵 卮禺氐蹖鬲 賴丕蹖 夭蹖丕丿. 賴賲賴 賵 賴賲賴 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 鬲亘丿蹖賱 亘賴 蹖賴 丕孬乇 賱匕鬲 亘禺卮 讴乇丿賴鈥屬�. 蹖賴 噩丕蹖 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 氐丨賳賴鈥屫з� 賮賵賯 丕賱毓丕丿賴 賴爻鬲 讴賴 乇丕賵蹖 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 讴賴 丿乇 夭賲丕賳 倬禺卮 卮丿賴 賵 賳丕禺賵丕爻鬲賴 亘賴 毓賯亘 賵 噩賱賵 賲蹖乇賴貙 蹖讴 賮賷賱賲 賲爻鬲賳丿 乇丕噩毓 亘賴 鬲賵賱蹖丿 亘賲亘 鬲賲丕卮丕 賲賶 讴賳賴貙 丕賲丕 賴賲賵賳 賲賵賯毓 丿乇 夭賲丕賳 亘賴 毓賯亘 丨乇讴鬲 賲蹖 讴賳賴 賵 賮蹖賱賲 乇賵 丕夭 丌禺乇 亘賴 丕賵賱 賲蹖 亘蹖賳賴: 賰丕乇诏乇賴丕 亘賲亘 賴丕 乇賵 亘賴 賲賵丕丿 丕賵賱賷賴 鬲噩夭賷賴 賲賶 賰賳賳 賵 賲毓丿賳趩賶 賴丕 丕賷賳 賲賵丕丿 丕賵賱賷賴 乇賵 亘賴 夭賷乇 夭賲賷賳 賲賶 亘乇賳 賵 亘丕 丿賯鬲 夭賷乇 爻賳诏 賴丕 賲禺賮賶 賲賶 讴賳賳賳 鬲丕 丕賷賳 賲賵丕丿 禺胤乇賳丕讴 亘賴 賰爻賶 丌爻賷亘 賳夭賳賴.
亘毓丿 丕夭 趩賳丿 爻丕賱 賲乇賵乇 丕蹖賳 氐丨賳賴 賴賳賵夭 亘乇丕賲 賱匕鬲鈥屫ㄘ促�.
讴鬲丕亘 亘蹖 賳馗蹖乇賴. 賱丨賳 胤賳夭 亘乇丕蹖 鬲賵氐蹖賮 讴卮鬲丕乇賴丕蹖 賵丨卮鬲賳丕讴貙 鬲乇讴蹖亘 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 噩賳诏 亘丕 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 毓賱賲蹖 鬲禺蹖賱蹖 賵 賮丕賳鬲夭蹖貙 賵 賵賯丕蹖毓 賵 卮禺氐蹖鬲 賴丕蹖 夭蹖丕丿. 賴賲賴 賵 賴賲賴 讴鬲丕亘 乇賵 鬲亘丿蹖賱 亘賴 蹖賴 丕孬乇 賱匕鬲 亘禺卮 讴乇丿賴鈥屬�. 蹖賴 噩丕蹖 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 氐丨賳賴鈥屫з� 賮賵賯 丕賱毓丕丿賴 賴爻鬲 讴賴 乇丕賵蹖 丿丕爻鬲丕賳 讴賴 丿乇 夭賲丕賳 倬禺卮 卮丿賴 賵 賳丕禺賵丕爻鬲賴 亘賴 毓賯亘 賵 噩賱賵 賲蹖乇賴貙 蹖讴 賮賷賱賲 賲爻鬲賳丿 乇丕噩毓 亘賴 鬲賵賱蹖丿 亘賲亘 鬲賲丕卮丕 賲賶 讴賳賴貙 丕賲丕 賴賲賵賳 賲賵賯毓 丿乇 夭賲丕賳 亘賴 毓賯亘 丨乇讴鬲 賲蹖 讴賳賴 賵 賮蹖賱賲 乇賵 丕夭 丌禺乇 亘賴 丕賵賱 賲蹖 亘蹖賳賴: 賰丕乇诏乇賴丕 亘賲亘 賴丕 乇賵 亘賴 賲賵丕丿 丕賵賱賷賴 鬲噩夭賷賴 賲賶 賰賳賳 賵 賲毓丿賳趩賶 賴丕 丕賷賳 賲賵丕丿 丕賵賱賷賴 乇賵 亘賴 夭賷乇 夭賲賷賳 賲賶 亘乇賳 賵 亘丕 丿賯鬲 夭賷乇 爻賳诏 賴丕 賲禺賮賶 賲賶 讴賳賳賳 鬲丕 丕賷賳 賲賵丕丿 禺胤乇賳丕讴 亘賴 賰爻賶 丌爻賷亘 賳夭賳賴.
亘毓丿 丕夭 趩賳丿 爻丕賱 賲乇賵乇 丕蹖賳 氐丨賳賴 賴賳賵夭 亘乇丕賲 賱匕鬲鈥屫ㄘ促�.
February 7, 2017
鈥淓verything is nothing, with a twist.鈥�
鈥� Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
I've read Slaughterhouse-Five several times and I'm still not sure I know exactly how Vonnegut pulls it off. It is primarily a postmodern, anti-war novel. It is an absurd look at war, memory, time, and humanity, but it is also gentle. Its prose emotionally feels (go ahead, pet the emotion) like the tug of the tides, the heaviness of sleep, the seduction of alcohol, the dizziness of love. His prose is simple, but beautiful.
Obviously, part of the brilliance of this novel is born from the reality that Vonnegut is largely playing the notes of his own song (obviously, obscured by an unreliable narrator, time that is unstuck, and generous kidnapping aliens). It is the song of someone who has seen horrible, horrible things but still wants to dance and smile (so a Totentanz?).
Emperor, your sword won't help you out
Sceptre and crown are worthless here
I've taken you by the hand
For you must come to my dance
I had to work very much and very hard
The sweat was running down my skin
I'd like to escape death nonetheless
But here I won't have any luck
It is essentially art pulled out of the tension between despair and hope, grief and celebration, love and death. It is a classic not because it has a message about war, but because it has a message about life. Vonnegut aimed at war and hit everything.
鈥� Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
I've read Slaughterhouse-Five several times and I'm still not sure I know exactly how Vonnegut pulls it off. It is primarily a postmodern, anti-war novel. It is an absurd look at war, memory, time, and humanity, but it is also gentle. Its prose emotionally feels (go ahead, pet the emotion) like the tug of the tides, the heaviness of sleep, the seduction of alcohol, the dizziness of love. His prose is simple, but beautiful.
Obviously, part of the brilliance of this novel is born from the reality that Vonnegut is largely playing the notes of his own song (obviously, obscured by an unreliable narrator, time that is unstuck, and generous kidnapping aliens). It is the song of someone who has seen horrible, horrible things but still wants to dance and smile (so a Totentanz?).
Emperor, your sword won't help you out
Sceptre and crown are worthless here
I've taken you by the hand
For you must come to my dance
I had to work very much and very hard
The sweat was running down my skin
I'd like to escape death nonetheless
But here I won't have any luck
It is essentially art pulled out of the tension between despair and hope, grief and celebration, love and death. It is a classic not because it has a message about war, but because it has a message about life. Vonnegut aimed at war and hit everything.
September 18, 2016
A strange and intriguing book that I found very hard to rate: a mixture of wartime memoir and sci fi - occasionally harrowing, sometimes funny and other times thought-provoking.
PLOT
It is the episodic story of Billy Pilgrim, a small town American boy, who is a POW in the second world war, later becomes a successful optometrist and who occasionally and accidentally travels in time to other periods of his life, so he has "memories of the future". Oh, he also gets abducted by aliens, along with some furniture. "So it goes." (That is the catchphrase of the book, and I found rather annoying after the umpteenth time. It's used in Philip K Dick's "Ubik" (review ), which I assumed was a nod to Vonnegut, until I discovered both were published in the same year).
It starts with an old man reminiscing about his life. He is asked about the point of writing an anti-war book, "Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?" After that, it jumps about, much as Billy does, "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time... he is in a constant state of stage fright".
The most thought-provoking bits for me were Billy's mother who tried "to construct a life that makes sense from things she found in gift shops", the bathos with which some war events were described (e.g. being executed for stealing a teapot), and the alien Tralfamadorian's multi-dimensional and multi-sexual world. For instance, they have five sexes, but their differences were in the fourth dimension and they couldn't imagine how time looks to Billy (they also told him that seven sexes were essential for human reproduction!).
MESSAGE
A main message is surprisingly positive: if we could only see or feel the fourth dimension, we would realise that "when a person dies he only appears to die. He is very much alive in the past".
SPOONS
Spoons are mentioned oddly often, as a description of how people lie (lovers or fallen soldiers). Then, near the end, actual spoons are briefly important. I have no idea whether this is significant.
UPDATE: Thanks to a comment from Matthias on his excellent review (read it here), I have, not an answer, but a great spoon reference in The Matrix:
"Do not try and bend the spoon, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: There is no spoon."
RELATED BOOKS
It has strong links with several other books: as it's Vonnegut, the "fictitious" sci fi writer, Kilgore Trout, gets several mentions.
The mode of time travel clearly influenced Octavia Butler's Kindred, review here,
and Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, review here.
When he watches a WW2 film in reverse, it's very like Amis's Time's Arrow, review here.
For a more linguistic and philosophical take on the implications of Tralfamadorians living in all time, simultaneously, see the heptapods in Ted Chiang's The Story of Your Life, review here.
Also compare it with the Borges short story A Weary Man鈥檚 Utopia, which is in The Book of Sand, review here
It also left me wanting to read a Tralfamadorian book with its simultaneous threads, "no beginning, no middle, no end... What we love in our books are the depths of many marvellous moments seen all at one time", which is surely what Vonnegut was trying to create for mere human readers.
PLOT
It is the episodic story of Billy Pilgrim, a small town American boy, who is a POW in the second world war, later becomes a successful optometrist and who occasionally and accidentally travels in time to other periods of his life, so he has "memories of the future". Oh, he also gets abducted by aliens, along with some furniture. "So it goes." (That is the catchphrase of the book, and I found rather annoying after the umpteenth time. It's used in Philip K Dick's "Ubik" (review ), which I assumed was a nod to Vonnegut, until I discovered both were published in the same year).
It starts with an old man reminiscing about his life. He is asked about the point of writing an anti-war book, "Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?" After that, it jumps about, much as Billy does, "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time... he is in a constant state of stage fright".
The most thought-provoking bits for me were Billy's mother who tried "to construct a life that makes sense from things she found in gift shops", the bathos with which some war events were described (e.g. being executed for stealing a teapot), and the alien Tralfamadorian's multi-dimensional and multi-sexual world. For instance, they have five sexes, but their differences were in the fourth dimension and they couldn't imagine how time looks to Billy (they also told him that seven sexes were essential for human reproduction!).
MESSAGE
A main message is surprisingly positive: if we could only see or feel the fourth dimension, we would realise that "when a person dies he only appears to die. He is very much alive in the past".
SPOONS
Spoons are mentioned oddly often, as a description of how people lie (lovers or fallen soldiers). Then, near the end, actual spoons are briefly important. I have no idea whether this is significant.
UPDATE: Thanks to a comment from Matthias on his excellent review (read it here), I have, not an answer, but a great spoon reference in The Matrix:
"Do not try and bend the spoon, that's impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: There is no spoon."
RELATED BOOKS
It has strong links with several other books: as it's Vonnegut, the "fictitious" sci fi writer, Kilgore Trout, gets several mentions.
The mode of time travel clearly influenced Octavia Butler's Kindred, review here,
and Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, review here.
When he watches a WW2 film in reverse, it's very like Amis's Time's Arrow, review here.
For a more linguistic and philosophical take on the implications of Tralfamadorians living in all time, simultaneously, see the heptapods in Ted Chiang's The Story of Your Life, review here.
Also compare it with the Borges short story A Weary Man鈥檚 Utopia, which is in The Book of Sand, review here
It also left me wanting to read a Tralfamadorian book with its simultaneous threads, "no beginning, no middle, no end... What we love in our books are the depths of many marvellous moments seen all at one time", which is surely what Vonnegut was trying to create for mere human readers.
March 26, 2019
No one really introduced me to this work, despite its resonant presence in the literary canon.
I adore books that reek of marvelous postmodern perfume. This is one original, enthralling, always-relevant novel. Vonnegut is brave & cowardly because he makes the material his own, yet he is but scenery... his main character is an Everyman who is sooo affected by the Dresden bombings that he "becomes unglued from time." Yes: war is complete, utter chaos... it becomes something more powerful than physics because it is so closely related to the complete termination of life, spirit, & earthly happiness.
"Maus" reminded me of this because it mixed humor with tragedy... something super hard to pull off because the events are real. The Children's Crusade is still being fought today & this personal statement cannot go out of style-- maybe presidents/dictators/rulers/monarchs should read it as a by law prerequisite?
I adore books that reek of marvelous postmodern perfume. This is one original, enthralling, always-relevant novel. Vonnegut is brave & cowardly because he makes the material his own, yet he is but scenery... his main character is an Everyman who is sooo affected by the Dresden bombings that he "becomes unglued from time." Yes: war is complete, utter chaos... it becomes something more powerful than physics because it is so closely related to the complete termination of life, spirit, & earthly happiness.
"Maus" reminded me of this because it mixed humor with tragedy... something super hard to pull off because the events are real. The Children's Crusade is still being fought today & this personal statement cannot go out of style-- maybe presidents/dictators/rulers/monarchs should read it as a by law prerequisite?
January 21, 2008
Contains spoilers
Slaughterhouse-Five is about a man called Billy Pilgrim who time-travels frequently. He was in the Second World War and, captured, was sent to Dresden to work in a malt syrup factory before the city was bombed. He studied optometry and had a nervous breakdown. He married the daughter of a rich optometrist, and became rich as well. He was abducted by aliens called Tralfamadorians, who put him in a zoo with a young porn actress, Montana Wildhack, whom they also abducted. He had a daughter called Barbara and a son called Robert. He was in a plane crash that killed everyone except him and the co-pilot. Rushing to the hospital in frantic worry, his wife Valencia dies in a car accident. He gets to meet his favourite author, an unsuccessful sci-fi writer called Kilgore Trout. "Slaughterhouse-Five" is the name of the building where the American POWs lived in in Dresden.
Because the narration jumps around as frequently as Billy does, you learn everything early on and then simply revisit it all. The fractured narrative is worse than watching ads in a commercial break, or those horrible pop songs where the scenes and costumes change every two seconds - it gives you a headache. It's extremely boring, and hollow, and unsatisfying.
I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, as you know. But I do like time-travel stories. Billy is nothing like Henry from The Time Traveler's Wife. For a start, not even a second seems to pass in "real" time while he is travelling - no one ever notices. It seems less like time-travelling than like reliving the past, present and future of your life, all at once, because it's his consciousness that does the travelling. What isn't clear, at all, is which is the real Billy? He moves so much, you have to wonder how he doesn't become completely dislodged from his own corporeal self and go mad.
The time-travelling predates the abduction-by-aliens, but the aliens themselves see the past, present and future simultaneously, and teach Billy their philosophy of not really caring about anything, since nothing can be changed etc. etc. Fatalism.
I think I hated this book, but not quite. Hate is a strong emotion and I don't think it brought that out in me. It wasn't even frustrating, nor even particularly confusing, though the repetition of the Tralfamadorian expression "so it goes" was so irritating I saw red a few times. The bits about the 100 American POWs being welcomed by the British POWs in a German prison camp was delightful, though boldly stereotyped, and I loved the excerpts from the work on American soldiers and prisoners-of-war by the American-turned-Nazi, forget his name, something Campbell. A lot of it - and it's a small, short book - could easily be skipped. The temptation was very strong.
In short, it's a very "postmodern" story, and like all things postmodern, it's impractical, disjointed, a bit wanky, tries too hard, is extremely out-dated and, at the end of the day, rather useless. Vonnegut is also very heavy-handed and bangs you on the head with his messages. It doesn't really inspire me to read more of Vonnegut's work. I guess he's a love-him-or-hate-him kind of story-teller.
Slaughterhouse-Five is about a man called Billy Pilgrim who time-travels frequently. He was in the Second World War and, captured, was sent to Dresden to work in a malt syrup factory before the city was bombed. He studied optometry and had a nervous breakdown. He married the daughter of a rich optometrist, and became rich as well. He was abducted by aliens called Tralfamadorians, who put him in a zoo with a young porn actress, Montana Wildhack, whom they also abducted. He had a daughter called Barbara and a son called Robert. He was in a plane crash that killed everyone except him and the co-pilot. Rushing to the hospital in frantic worry, his wife Valencia dies in a car accident. He gets to meet his favourite author, an unsuccessful sci-fi writer called Kilgore Trout. "Slaughterhouse-Five" is the name of the building where the American POWs lived in in Dresden.
Because the narration jumps around as frequently as Billy does, you learn everything early on and then simply revisit it all. The fractured narrative is worse than watching ads in a commercial break, or those horrible pop songs where the scenes and costumes change every two seconds - it gives you a headache. It's extremely boring, and hollow, and unsatisfying.
I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, as you know. But I do like time-travel stories. Billy is nothing like Henry from The Time Traveler's Wife. For a start, not even a second seems to pass in "real" time while he is travelling - no one ever notices. It seems less like time-travelling than like reliving the past, present and future of your life, all at once, because it's his consciousness that does the travelling. What isn't clear, at all, is which is the real Billy? He moves so much, you have to wonder how he doesn't become completely dislodged from his own corporeal self and go mad.
The time-travelling predates the abduction-by-aliens, but the aliens themselves see the past, present and future simultaneously, and teach Billy their philosophy of not really caring about anything, since nothing can be changed etc. etc. Fatalism.
I think I hated this book, but not quite. Hate is a strong emotion and I don't think it brought that out in me. It wasn't even frustrating, nor even particularly confusing, though the repetition of the Tralfamadorian expression "so it goes" was so irritating I saw red a few times. The bits about the 100 American POWs being welcomed by the British POWs in a German prison camp was delightful, though boldly stereotyped, and I loved the excerpts from the work on American soldiers and prisoners-of-war by the American-turned-Nazi, forget his name, something Campbell. A lot of it - and it's a small, short book - could easily be skipped. The temptation was very strong.
In short, it's a very "postmodern" story, and like all things postmodern, it's impractical, disjointed, a bit wanky, tries too hard, is extremely out-dated and, at the end of the day, rather useless. Vonnegut is also very heavy-handed and bangs you on the head with his messages. It doesn't really inspire me to read more of Vonnegut's work. I guess he's a love-him-or-hate-him kind of story-teller.
February 10, 2017
Listen:
This reviewer is stuck in time. He is unable to escape the narrow confines of the invisible, intangible machinery mercilessly directing his life from a beginning towards an end. The walls surrounding him are dotted with windows looking out on darkened memories and foggy expectations, easing the sense of claustrophobia but offering no way out. The ceiling is crushing down on this man while he paces frantically through other people's lives and memories in hopes of shaping his own and forgetting the enormity of oblivion looming above his head. He reads book after book after book. He reads Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. He gets immersed, he gets lost in the pages. He smiles. He wonders. He tumbles. He laughs a laugh that seems to come from somewhere deep within him, telling him that everything is beautiful. A laugh that shoots up from a dark place and illuminates the universe, bathing it in colour, showing all the hidden threads in a fraction of a second. The man is consoled, recognizing that fraction as an eternity. He closes the book and looks around him. The space got bigger, the windows show a clearer picture. He sees his situation with a new light emanating from his own eyes and, looking up, notices the oppressive ceiling is no longer there. It made way for the sky, sometimes blue, sometimes painted with stars and clouds. He ruminates on this new canvas for his thoughts as a bird flies by and calls to him.
Poo-tee-weet.
This reviewer is stuck in time. He is unable to escape the narrow confines of the invisible, intangible machinery mercilessly directing his life from a beginning towards an end. The walls surrounding him are dotted with windows looking out on darkened memories and foggy expectations, easing the sense of claustrophobia but offering no way out. The ceiling is crushing down on this man while he paces frantically through other people's lives and memories in hopes of shaping his own and forgetting the enormity of oblivion looming above his head. He reads book after book after book. He reads Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. He gets immersed, he gets lost in the pages. He smiles. He wonders. He tumbles. He laughs a laugh that seems to come from somewhere deep within him, telling him that everything is beautiful. A laugh that shoots up from a dark place and illuminates the universe, bathing it in colour, showing all the hidden threads in a fraction of a second. The man is consoled, recognizing that fraction as an eternity. He closes the book and looks around him. The space got bigger, the windows show a clearer picture. He sees his situation with a new light emanating from his own eyes and, looking up, notices the oppressive ceiling is no longer there. It made way for the sky, sometimes blue, sometimes painted with stars and clouds. He ruminates on this new canvas for his thoughts as a bird flies by and calls to him.
Poo-tee-weet.
December 4, 2013
There are only a few books that I ever really try to revisit. Sherlock Holmes and his stories are one. Some Shakespeare. And Slaughterhouse-Five.
I have read this book every year since my first reading almost ten years ago. I read it as an undergraduate; I read it as a graduate student. I've written three or four papers about it. And, yes, I have tried to pawn this book off on as many people as I could over the years.
You see, this book does something to me whenever I read it. It takes me places. Sure there is the time travel, other-world element to the novel, but the places it takes me are not physical in nature. I can't rightly say that they are spiritual either. Basically, the best way I can describe it is where I am taken is if my heart, mind, soul, education, fears, desires, and dreams were all placed in a blender and set to liquefy. And then this slosh of material is constructed into whatever semblance of a structure can be created from this amalgam.
This novel gets me to question not only life, but what it means that I was the lucky sperm to reach the egg, or that I was the lucky egg that was implanted. Oh dear, I fear I am convoluting what it is I am trying to say.
Okay, here goes: This book questions war. It questions as to why humans feel it is imperative to destroy. It questions what it might be like to live a completely different life than the one you live now. But it doesn't try to give bullshit answers. In fact, it really doesn't try to give answers to anything. And since this book is based on actual experiences Vonnegut suffered during WWII, it might be better said that this novel is really a science fiction memoir.
Dammit, I am screwing this up. I cannot seem to say it is that I want to say.
Enough already! Read the book. Or don't read the book. I know what it does to me.
So it goes.
VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDEED
I have read this book every year since my first reading almost ten years ago. I read it as an undergraduate; I read it as a graduate student. I've written three or four papers about it. And, yes, I have tried to pawn this book off on as many people as I could over the years.
You see, this book does something to me whenever I read it. It takes me places. Sure there is the time travel, other-world element to the novel, but the places it takes me are not physical in nature. I can't rightly say that they are spiritual either. Basically, the best way I can describe it is where I am taken is if my heart, mind, soul, education, fears, desires, and dreams were all placed in a blender and set to liquefy. And then this slosh of material is constructed into whatever semblance of a structure can be created from this amalgam.
This novel gets me to question not only life, but what it means that I was the lucky sperm to reach the egg, or that I was the lucky egg that was implanted. Oh dear, I fear I am convoluting what it is I am trying to say.
Okay, here goes: This book questions war. It questions as to why humans feel it is imperative to destroy. It questions what it might be like to live a completely different life than the one you live now. But it doesn't try to give bullshit answers. In fact, it really doesn't try to give answers to anything. And since this book is based on actual experiences Vonnegut suffered during WWII, it might be better said that this novel is really a science fiction memoir.
Dammit, I am screwing this up. I cannot seem to say it is that I want to say.
Enough already! Read the book. Or don't read the book. I know what it does to me.
So it goes.
VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDEED
January 27, 2010
This novel has a pretty basic and consistent structure: a few paragraphs of humorous (I think) writing that has the presumed purpose of loosening you up before you get to the sucker-punch paragraph that contains something disturbing/death-related followed by "so it goes." And if the "so it goes" wasn't there to remind you that this is the part where death happens, Vonnegut hammers the point home by relaying it an inhumanly cool, dry, and nonchalant manner. How coy and provocative. Maybe Vonnegut could have helped the reader along a little more with a footnote: "See what I did there? By having my narrator relate stories of war and death in an apathetic manner, I made you really think about these issues. Didn't I? Huh? Huh?" Yes, we get it, Kurt.
Part way through reading this book, I was sharing my disappointment with a friend who mentioned that Vonnegut, like the narrator, had actually witnessed the Dresden bombings. This apologia left me momentarily chastened as I considered the sobering impetus for the story. Then I mentally slapped myself for even considering that sympathy could cover for the stylistic bludgeoning that Vonnegut inflicted. I suppose there was a well thought out reason for making the prose stuttering and choppy, but I can't imagine what that would actually be (nor would I care to). Interestingly enough, Vonnegut may have been aware of this stylistic shortcoming: speaking of Billy's favorite obscure sci-fi author, he writes that "Trout's prose is frightful. Only his ideas are good." Kilgore Trout and his writing apparently feature in other Vonnegut books, and a Washington Post reviewer in the mid 70s contended that "Trout's prose is at least as good as Vonnegut's." Exactly.
And were the philosophical musings on time and fate, revealed primarily through unimaginative and silly sci-fi ramblings, supposed to be novel or even vaguely interesting? It's like he took Tolstoy's ruminations on fate and free will in War and Peace and then removed all the complexities and internal dissonance.
In the second half of the story, I did find myself mildly interested in what was happening. Perhaps I became accustomed to the writing or the pain just dulled after a while. Regardless, this book crossed the overrated line so egregiously that I can't muster a second star. Heavy-handed, prosaic, unfunny. So it goes.
Part way through reading this book, I was sharing my disappointment with a friend who mentioned that Vonnegut, like the narrator, had actually witnessed the Dresden bombings. This apologia left me momentarily chastened as I considered the sobering impetus for the story. Then I mentally slapped myself for even considering that sympathy could cover for the stylistic bludgeoning that Vonnegut inflicted. I suppose there was a well thought out reason for making the prose stuttering and choppy, but I can't imagine what that would actually be (nor would I care to). Interestingly enough, Vonnegut may have been aware of this stylistic shortcoming: speaking of Billy's favorite obscure sci-fi author, he writes that "Trout's prose is frightful. Only his ideas are good." Kilgore Trout and his writing apparently feature in other Vonnegut books, and a Washington Post reviewer in the mid 70s contended that "Trout's prose is at least as good as Vonnegut's." Exactly.
And were the philosophical musings on time and fate, revealed primarily through unimaginative and silly sci-fi ramblings, supposed to be novel or even vaguely interesting? It's like he took Tolstoy's ruminations on fate and free will in War and Peace and then removed all the complexities and internal dissonance.
In the second half of the story, I did find myself mildly interested in what was happening. Perhaps I became accustomed to the writing or the pain just dulled after a while. Regardless, this book crossed the overrated line so egregiously that I can't muster a second star. Heavy-handed, prosaic, unfunny. So it goes.
November 11, 2019
At first, the absurdity of Slaughterhouse-Five (now read 5 times) makes it difficult to take seriously.
However, part of Vonnegut's magic is that this absurdity becomes impossible to ignore (and increasingly powerful as the narrative moves forward). Vonnegut actually wants you to focus on the absurd. It works itself not only into the narrative, where our protagonist becomes unstuck in time and is abducted by aliens, but also into questions about war, civilization, identity and theories of time (and how this impacts perceptions of life and death). Slaughterhouse-Five didn't grab me right away, but as I continued to read, Vonnegut's explorations become more intriguing and insightful. I know I've commented on Vonnegut's perspective on the world in other reviews. You wonder how Vonnegut made the leaps he did and when you think about them there's something completely rational about these leaps (which are taken to possibly irrational extremes). In any event, Slaughterhouse-Five is a book I wouldn't hesitate to recommend; Vonnegut's unique perspective continues to be fresh and interesting...And so it goes!
However, part of Vonnegut's magic is that this absurdity becomes impossible to ignore (and increasingly powerful as the narrative moves forward). Vonnegut actually wants you to focus on the absurd. It works itself not only into the narrative, where our protagonist becomes unstuck in time and is abducted by aliens, but also into questions about war, civilization, identity and theories of time (and how this impacts perceptions of life and death). Slaughterhouse-Five didn't grab me right away, but as I continued to read, Vonnegut's explorations become more intriguing and insightful. I know I've commented on Vonnegut's perspective on the world in other reviews. You wonder how Vonnegut made the leaps he did and when you think about them there's something completely rational about these leaps (which are taken to possibly irrational extremes). In any event, Slaughterhouse-Five is a book I wouldn't hesitate to recommend; Vonnegut's unique perspective continues to be fresh and interesting...And so it goes!
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