Slaughterhouse 5

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

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I was doing a science fiction stream on the “50 Greatest Books of Science Fiction.” My daughter had insisted that I put this on the list. Since I hadn't read it, I thought it would be a good idea before I recommended it.

Even without reading Slaughterhouse-Five, I knew it belonged on the list. It has had a cultural resonance far beyond science fiction as has Kurt Vonnegut. I knew the outline of the book vaguely. Frankly, it's amazing that I went 60 years without reading it.

Slaughterhouse-Five was Vonnegut's great effort to come to literary terms with his experience as a POW in Dresden when the city was burned to the ground. Yet, the Dresden incident is really a fraction of the story, which, as everyone knows, involves his protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, living a conventional life, surviving Dresden because he was housed in a deep cave/slaughterhouse, becoming unstuck in time, being kidnapped by the Tralfamadorians, who put him in a zoo with a naked film star, and otherwise leading a perfectly normal life. All of this is told in Vonnegut's light, easy to read style. The effect is light and amusing with a fair number of humorous aphorisms. Vonnegut provides fan service with references to Kilgore Trout and Howard W. Campbell, Jr., the fascist spokesman/central character of “Mother Night.”

I recommend it.

As I read this book, I began to doubt that this was science fiction at all. What it really seems to be, to me, is a story about an aging man suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. It seems that he doesn't reveal his being “unstuck in time” to anyone until he is past middle age and his wife has died. At that point, his daughter worries about his mental health. Billy Pilgrim seems to be a sad example of someone who has suffered a trauma - Dresden, obviously - and has never quite processed it. The Tralfamadorian incident seems like science fiction wish-fulfillment.

The fact that this book is ambiguous and can be read on different levels adds to its charms.