Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel by Kurt Vonnegut
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Book Reviews of Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel
Book Review: 40 Years Old and Still Very Worthy of a Read
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the best things I learned in college was the name Kurt Vonnegut. His voice is uniquely his own and always worthy of the investment in the time to listen to. Slaughterhouse Five definitely is a work that all should invest the time to read. Personally, I think it should be read a couple of times over one's life to understand the collective and individual ravages of war.
A favorite scene of mine in the movie Back to School is when Rodney Dangerfield tells Vonnegut in a cameo appearance that he doesn't know a thing about Vonnegut. This is why I love Slaughterhouse Five. There are so many concepts presented here that everyone will interpret the elements of the book differently.
- Does Billy Pilgrim time travel or is he trapped in his mind from the horrors he has experienced?
- Is his time travel a copping mechanism from the dismay of being a POW?
- Is war just to be accepted as a natural event that should be ignored as the Tralfamadorians do or should we not accepted it and fight against it because as humans with free will we have the inherent capabilities to stop it?
- Do we have free will?
- Are we a more dangerous a people with atomic weapons when we proved capable of killing 135,000 people in Dresden and 84,000 in Tokyo with fire-bombing while killing only 71,000 in Hiroshima with an atomic bomb?
- Who is worse, the soldiers who killed innocent people and turned their body fat into candles or those who boiled the soldiers innocent children in the fire-bombing of a safe-city? Is revenge sweet as Lazzaro implies? If so, why did he not revel in the bombing of Dresden?
- Why do we allow children to fight our wars?
The list of questions to contemplate from this book can go on and on.
Again, to me Slaughterhouse Five definitely is worth reading a few times over one's life. Billy Pilgrim, unremarkable Billy Pilgrim, is a character worthy of note in the annals of literature. The seamless presentation of a timeless, though disjointed, story of Billy's life is exceptional. Everyone will have their own interpretation of the themes. To paraphrase from the book, here is light opera being played by crippled human beings, more fools like ourselves.
[One quick negative point, I read the smaller sized Dell paperback, which had terrible typesetting.]
Book Review: One of the greatest books ever written.
Summary: 5 Stars
I'll admit, I'm not much of a reader (until fairly recently). Lately I've been on a sci-fi kick and somebody at my work recommended this book, Slaughterhouse Five. Originally it sounded more like I was jumping into the middle of a series of cheesy horror books but after minimal research I learned a bit more about the plot.
This book follows a man named Billy Pilgrim. Billy is a unique character, a man of few words. He reminds me a bit of Forrest Gump. Billy has a special ability, he can travel through time, through different parts of his life - though he is unable to do it intentionally. It just happens. Occasionally he travels to Tralfamadore, a planet many light years away. Here he is in a zoo, behind bars. Though the Tralfamadorians like to observe Billy, they also give him sound advice.
Billy was behind German lines during the Battle of the Buldge when he was taken prisoner and placed in a slaughterhouse (hence the name of the book). Billy witnesses one of the most horrific events in recorded history, the attack on Dresden. Though we learn of this attack we also learn about Billys life as a whole, such as his wife that loves him much more than he seems to love her.
Okay, I have to admit something else - when I first started reading this book I didn't know much about Vonnegut. I didn't know of his history. About 30 pages in I started noticing something... even though the writing style is simple (and brilliant I might add) I was able to pick up that this book really meant something to the author. I know he talks about his experience in the first chapter, I still wasn't sure originally if that was fiction or not. I started doing some more research on Vonnegut and I learned that it was in fact a fact. Vonnegut really did witness many horrors in his life including the attack on Dresden. Suddenly this book really started to make sense.
Sure, this book can be classified as sci-fi but there are a lot of truths in there. Vonnegut is a master at the metaphor and you learn that he uses sci-fi as a vehicle for something much greater. This book is simple, yet incredibly brilliant and much deeper then it first seems. It's amazing how much imagery Vonnegut can pack into a single sentence of simple words. I've read books that communicate a lot less with many more words.
Book Review: A weirdly awesome book.
Summary: 5 Stars
I realized that I'm probably one of the many ignorant kids of my generation who have been too busy to pick up a book by this author, so this is officially my introduction to Kurt Vonnegut. So it goes.
I admit that my venture into reading a Vonnegut book was triggered by my curiosity, yet again, after reading a lot of positive, even gushing, reviews about most of his books. For a book that's dealing with the horror and gore of war conflated with issues of time travel and alien abduction, it is so incredibly well-written. He describes the events so matter-of-factly that descriptions of corpses and human waste don't throw you off. Instead, you keep on reading. He writes with a certain level of humor washed with sarcasm that makes you appreciate the experiences that's being presented to you without feeling any kind of disgust.
Billy Pilgrim becomes `unstuck in time' after a plane crash. The story takes you back and forth to different points in Billy's life--from his experiences pre- and post-war. The novel also has some science fiction elements with regards to Billy getting abducted by the aliens from the planet of Tralfamadore. His daughter refuses to believe him and instead takes it as one of the many signs of his deteriorating health. The Tralfamadorians teach him about seeing life in the fourth dimension. They believe that their body never truly dies and that it continues to exist in other times and places when it was still alive.
"I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is."
It may sound like a weird book and it is, but it also heartrendingly humanistic. The truth is, this book reminded me of J. D. Salinger's "The Catcher in The Rye". The experience as a whole felt familiar and the difference is that, I enjoyed this book a lot more than the other. Don't get me wrong. The similarity lies in the writing style and how Billy Pilgrim reminded me so much of Holden Caulfield, but that's about it. This book stands on its own, definitely. So does Salinger's "The Catcher in The Rye". I'm re-reading both in the near future because they are the kind of books that call for a second or third visit.
Book Review: Not just a fantasy
Summary: 5 Stars
Where to begin? I feel that many of the reviewers have already captured the essence of this novel, but I also feel compelled to add to it.. after all, how can one not?
Typically, I have not been a fan of science fiction/fantasy books, but let me assure those of you who have not yet read this due to its label, it is far beyond and separated from novels in such a genre. I had heard of Kurt Vonnegut, but much to my present dismay, had distanced my literary choices from his work. That has forever changed.
"Billy Pilgram" has left an impression on me that I may not be able to properly describe. He is painted to be such a simple and almost uneventful character, that you'd imagine this person to bore you to tears. However, you will learn that his life is far from simplicity and holds the burdens of heartbreak, insanity (or perhaps, just an overactive imagination that bleeds into his human character?), tolerance of negativities, and nonchalanticity (if I may create a word here), that entices the reader to feel those emotions as if their own. Billy Pilgram does not ever seem to be confused, regardless of his travels through time and the experiences he is driven to live. He is comfortable with what he is presented with, most likely due to the fact that he learns about fate and its inevitability. You'll find yourself questioning your previous interpretation on time, war, imagination/dreams, love...
Although, coined into an anti-war mindset, it is not a novel that attempts to draw you into any specific stance. That aspect alone, is masterfully done. I wish authors of current affairs would be able to so delicately yet so simply describe their feelings without judgment, persuasion, or controversy.
This tale will make you smile, laugh, frown, scratch your head.. The Works. You'll be pulled into another planet, a war, a marriage... and may come to the conclusion that time is what we make of it. It's an entity that we both take for granted and still ponder upon what to do with it. Fate, destiny, they are much larger than our ability to control, and often times, fighting it or attempting to counteract it, will only yield the same result in the end, after all. And so it goes. ;-)
Book Review: A Look into the Future and a Peek into the Past
Summary: 5 Stars
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five is a well known American classic. It provides a look into the future, a peek into the past, and a narration of a portion of the present life of Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist and unlikely hero. Vonnegut took a creative risk by writing a novel that could be categorized as both science fiction and historical. In doing so, he created what could be considered one of the most innovative and successful works of literature of the modern age.
Vonnegut's main character, Pilgrim, has the ability to "come unstuck in time." He has learned how to move in between memories of the past and visions of the future. The most vivid memories come from Pilgrim's time spent in the war. He has many horrific reminiscences of being herded into Dresden, which, through his time travels, he knew would be destroyed. Pilgrim also has "memories" of his time spent in the future on a planet called Tralfamadore, a planet where he is taken after he abducted by aliens who enjoy keeping him as a type of pet to study. Vonnegut smoothly transitions between these two sets of recollections by Therefore, Vonnegut's work seems less like choppy satirical anecdotes, and more like a fluid story.
In my opinion, Slaughterhouse Five succeeds in conquering the eternal question of time. Billy, unlike most people, is given the opportunity to not only reflect on the different parts of his life, but also relive them. Rather than focusing on living in his present life, though, Billy is constantly moving in and out of time in the search for why things are happening. He has been given a gift, but he is unable to take each moment as its own. He has to learn, like the Tralfamadorians already have, that the reason that something is happening is not important, it is just the fact that it is happening. Instead of thinking like and Earthling, Pilgrim must learn not to ask, as he does in the beginning: "Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything?" and just accept that the answer to all his questions of time is merely: "Because this moment simply is."