Slaughterhouse 5

I think I went into this book not knowing what to expect. I've finished it, and I'm still not quite sure what I read. It's one of those books that makes me either think I'm too shallow to get the point, or perhaps I get the point but I'm too jaded (or emotionally guarded) to feel it. Perhaps I actually expected too much or too less than what the book was willing to give, and in some form of ironic justice I'm inexplicably disappointed that I didn't get whatever I expected.

All I know is that this book moved me in some way. I cannot say what way it was. Maybe I need to read it again. Maybe it'll come to me in an hour or a day or a week. I'm not sure I want it to, because there's something incredibly powerful there. It's a little frightening.

Like other books by Vonnegut focusing on the war, the humor in this book hits a little differently. As opposed to some of his other books which read to me like humor with bits of serious deep-cutting insight, this doesn't have the same baseline levity. It feels more like a long tragedy with bits of gallows humor paced throughout. Even the more fantastical parts of the story feel more eerie, perhaps because we know we're going to come back to the real world some day to finish living out the rest of the tragedy.

Some of this perspective no doubt comes because this is something like the fifth Vonnegut book I've read (after Galápagos, Breakfast of Champions, Player Piano, Mother Night, The Sirens of Titan) so I have certain expectations that you may not have if you're new to the author. It gave me a similar feeling to reading Mother Night (probably because they both deal with real-life tragedy of WWII), but for some reason I wasn't prepared for that.

Based on what little I had heard about the book (perhaps everybody supposing that it was required reading and I must already have read it), I was expecting something like a gritty memoire. Instead, I got a combination of post-modern framing, fantastical interludes, and humor about tragedy that feels unique to Vonnegut.

read for english class

it's always difficult to attempt a more cursory statement on a work you've been picking apart for weeks, even a relatively short one such as this. but if anything i have to commend how this dissects traditional war fiction, beyond being obviously unglamorous it's a really incredible subversion if you're familiar with the genre. a lot of this lies in tralfamadorian philosophy, ie how it is juxtaposed over the war via billy pilgrim's perspective to convey how powerless the individual pawns are in the scale of global conflict. there are no heroes, not the apathetic billy nor the vengeance driven paul lazarro. the closest thing to a hero we have, at least a wholly patriotic and seemingly good-natured figure, is executed for taking a teacup from the crumbling remains of dresden.

there is a debate about what constitutes “anti-war” media, one i believe to be more prominent in cinematic discussion circles - the topic is inherently glamourized and/or aestheticized in a lot of films, and while i think it's more difficult to inadvertently do so in the written medium it's still a possibility. nonetheless i think this is one of the most potent anti-war works i've come across, in part due to the sentiment being clearly embedded in vonnegut's own experiences as a prisoner of war. he seems to be very conscious of how general media glorifies the topic. a recurring and utterly horrifying statement is that the soldiers of these wars are truly just children. not heroes, but children dehumanized, reduced to tools for conflict. in a novel full of incredible ideas, i believe that is what will stay with me the longest.

One of the best books that I have ever read. I love Kurt Vonnegut's humor and this book made me view war and death very differently. The time travel and Billy's disconnection from reality makes him view the world more objectively. I also felt disconnected from reality when I was reading this book. It made me view WWII as a battle between two uncaring forces instead of an emotional and political battle between two superpowers. Billy's time travel makes the war feel insignificant and he quickly finds out who wins, loses, and dies. The amount of death and newborn life in this book also made me think of those events as insignificant. Things happen, lives change, but the world keeps on spinning. Billy sees all these horrible events and the narrator is quite unfazed.

I first read this book in my 12th grade English class with Dr. Matt Beery. I listened to this book again while I worked at Romo Fabrics during the summer of my senior year of high school.

One sentence synopsis... Billy Pilgrim's “unstuck in time” travels from the fire bombings in Dresden to the alien planet of Tralfamadore. .

Read it if you like... ‘Fahrenheit 451', ‘Catch-22', other modern classics with names and numbers as the title. .

Dream casting... Unfortunately I had recently seen ‘1917' so I could only picture George MacKay as Billy Pilgrim and Dean-Charles Chapman as Roland Weary.

This is a War book, not science fiction. I didn't like the way it was written, although it seemed to be a very good story. The author was able to pass through the emotions he felt during the war. However, the time travel angle made it feel like it was written by a dyslexic, total lack of cohesion. And that horrible sentence he says all the time “and so it goes...”.

Vonnegut's masterpiece, ‘Slaughterhouse-Five', is often said to be the ‘amongst the 100 best novels written in the 20th century' - which is high praise, but after reading, turns out to be a little less than it deserved -if anything, this work of art deserves even more.
It is extremely hard to write my thoughts about this book in the form of a coherent review. Whatever the reason (ranging from the multitude of subjects the book handles with aplomb, or the harrowing descriptions of the sheer futility of war, or just the banal bromide ‘So it goes' being turned into a haunting phrase that sticks with you long after you've finished reading the book), this book was impossible to put down, and you somehow get the feeling that you've missed quite a lot of stuff, that will be visible by the second or third read.
TL;DR - one of the best books I've ever read. Essential reading, if you're even slightly interested in works about war, writing about writing, and of course, time travel.

I honestly have no idea what to think about this book. It is the exact opposite of pretentious and it made me feel all kinds of things about WWII that no other media has.

I really can't wait for our book club to discuss this one because there's a lot to unpack here and I don't even know where to start.

Originalidad y talento. Amo a Vonnegut y creí que nada superaría a Madre noche pero este me hace dudar.

El estilo, la intercalación de tiempos y anécdotas, los personajes, todo es genial, todo es original. Entre narraciones con un toque delirante, se palpa el dolor del propio autor y el absurdo de la guerra. Cuestionamientos casi existenciales surgen de conversaciones bizarras con alienígenas ¿imaginarios?

“Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: ‘Why me?'‘That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?'‘Yes' (...)‘Well there you are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.'”

“‘All the real soldiers are dead', she said. It was true. So it goes.”

“It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: ‘if you're so smart why ain't you rich?' (...)Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.”

I read this book soon after reading Mother Night; I was curious since I knew that Campbell, the main character of Mother Night made a “cameo” in Slaughterhouse-Five.

This has other similarities, it is about WWII, it uses dark humor, there is a narrator telling a story-within-a-story and the narrative shifts around in time.

The time shifts are connected to the story here because the mind of the main character, Billy Pilgrim, moves in and out of different points in his life. He believes he was captured by aliens who taught him that time doesn't happen in any particular order. Everything happens all at once and is predestined. He'll be in WWII and suddenly shift to his wedding night, or to working with a patient as an optometrist, or to being an exhibit in the alien zoo, etc.

I'm suggesting “he believes” because my thoughts during reading this were that the reader is not meant to take this as part of the reality of the book; it's not science fiction. Instead, the alien abduction is part of his way of escaping the horrors of his life, particularly being a POW and surviving the bombing of Dresden. I could be dead wrong about this; maybe we are meant to think he was captured by aliens.

But take the bits when he's in the alien zoo, Billy's mating partner is a sexy movie star, Montana Wildhack. This indicates to me that it's a fantasy created in Billy's mind, otherwise, why wouldn't it be just any average woman, someone equal to Billy himself in looks and fame.

The other effect of Billy's alien adventure is that he is convinced there is no such thing as free will. If all events are happening at once then they will always happen; there was really no choice to be made. This fits in with Billy's general passivity during the course of his own life. The only time he seems to make a decision in the book is when he searches for a television station (but finds a radio station) to get his story on the air. He doesn't have to take responsibility for things that happen to him.

Another concept that both Slaughterhouse-Five and Mother Night explored is that in warfare, both sides are human. Germans were people too, or whoever is the “enemy” in any given war. The citizens of Dresden are all killed and it's just as horrifying as when any Allied cities were bombed. It's not a totally original thought but I like the way it's handled by Vonnegut.

Final thoughts: Slaughterhouse-Five was an interesting tale full of many ideas to ponder, but it didn't move me quite as much as Mother Night did. As always, I appreciate Vonnegut's high degree of readability and ability to get across meaning without getting preachy. This is a skill that's missing for many writers these days.

Tenho percebido que guerra não é exatamente um tema que me atrai. Mas não foi só por isso que essa leitura me decepcionou um pouco.

O próprio autor diz - sobre outro autor, mas achei irônico - “his prose was frightful, only his ideas were good”. Muitas coisinhas me incomodaram durante a leitura, como a escrita repetitiva em frases curtas e secas, ou a apresentação de arcos e personagens que não vão a lugar algum. E apesar disso tudo, alguns conceitos presentes na história são interessantes e demonstram potencial, como a visão do tempo como fixo e acessível e a ressignificação da morte (com o qual Ted Chang faz um ótimo trabalho). Mas todas as ideias são jogadas de um jeito meio caótico e deixadas sem muito apreço, o que pode ser intencional, porque é bem consistente, mas não me agrada.

So it goes.

BLUF: Pass on this classic.

Um.. What?I'm not going to lie to you: I had to Google what makes this book so great. I still have no idea why it is popular. Maybe because it was a hit when it came out (for reasons unknown). Maybe it is because of the attempts to censor this book soon after. If you know, please enlighten me.

Plot: Slaughterhouse-Five follows Billy Pilgrim's life in a haphazard manner. We are led in and out of his life, through good times and bad. We visit an alien planet where Pilgrim is set on display as an exhibit in the zoo. We learn about his time within the army. We even go through his post-army career as an optometrist. It's a mildly entertaining take on a fictive autobiography.

My Take: I didn't have a problem with the choppy writing or with its clarity. I didn't have a problem with the science fiction or the way the novel skipped around. I did have a problem finding interest in this story, understanding its point, and, like most, staying sane through the excessive use of the phrase “So it goes”.

Disclaimer: The only disclaimer I can give is that I don't do too well with older books.