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Title: Slaughterhouse-Five
ISBN: 0385333846
Author:
Kurt Vonnegut
Publicate Date: 1999-01-12
Publish: 1999-01-12
List Price: $14.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $7.54
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $7.46
Amazon Merchant Price: $11.20
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| Customer Review: |
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1: So unique that a true review is difficult. So it goes.
Slaughterhouse five is one of those great anti-war books in the 60's that is really hard to describe, so I'll make it quick. It tells about Billy Pilgrim, who 'time travels' to many points of his life, including the bombing of Dresden. He also gets kidnapped by aliens and learns about their way of life. Embedded in the whacky, realistic narraration is a message about war and life itself. I can't say much about it except that it's a must-read before you die.
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2: Shell Shocked
An amazing story that pulls the reader through time and back again. Story fragments shuffled in time. Escaping to the future, being in the present. Then always coming back to the war. Highly recommended.
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3: A Masterpiece
Vonnegut has penned a celebration of the anti-hero, the story of an unwitting man who takes a winding, chronologically non-linear dash through the space/time continuum. Billy Pilgrim experiences combat in Europe during World War II while simultaneously experiencing life as a successful optometrist in Ilium, New York twenty years later. Complexity to complexity, in 1967, Billy is kidnapped by aliens and kept captive in a zoo on the planet Tralfamadore, naked and with a porn star for his cellmate.
That's the gist. How's the pudding, you ask?
Great. A frolicking mixture of anti-war sentiments and social commentary, Slaughterhouse 5 teases, humors, shocks and entertains. In expanding the topical and structural boundaries of the American novel, Vonnegut effectively gives a new generation of writers permission to experiment. Had it not been for Slaughterhouse 5, my first novel could not have included a trial of the Lord for crimes against humanity, court proceedings conducted against the backdrop of the Iraq War. Unlike Mr. Vonnegut, I didn't manage to include aliens and porn stars in the storyline, but there's always a next time.
(Smile)
And so Vonnegut has created a literary masterpiece, one that successfully melds the dispassionate sensibilities of existentialism with a cubist form, telling a story that is at once funny, sad, shallow and profound.
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4: Not as anti-war as I was led to believe
This book is about Billy, a pitiful loser who sleepwalks his way through WWII. Through weaving chronology we see the negative effects the war had on his ability to deal with reality.
From the other reviews I was expecting a strong missive against war, along the likes of 1984, but instead Vonnegut's thoughts about war is rather ho-hum and tame. The war gets second billing to Billy's story and the description of Dresden's bombing gets less description than you can find in its Wikipedia entry.
This is an enjoyable, quick read, but not particularly profound or heavy.
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5: On Another Level
Somewhere in the first chapter (or maybe the second, if you are convinced that the first chapter is a foreword), it dawns on you: this is not normal. The main character is not dynamic. There is no real, driving conflict. There is no escalation, nor any other conventional literary mechanism used to move the story. That would probably be the best word to describe Vonnegut: anticonventional.
What follows is a masterful tale the likes of which we may never see again. The sublime tones combine with a graceful, immersive imagery and characters that are bare and gaunt while also full of fervor. The themes are beautiful and horrible to watch, but Billy Pilgrim's journey is one you won't be able to avoid. It'll call to you whenever this book is not in your hands. At any given moment, you'll find yourself murmuring to no one in particular, "So it goes."
I am not sure how this novel is assigned to high school literature classes, because the book is so subtle and layered: I would think that teaching this book to teenagers would be like describing Newton's theories to a family of Dachshunds. I guess that's why they (high school English teachers, not the dogs) descend to the level of Ethan Frome, or other such toys, to pass the time. Purely put, Vonngeut doesn't deserve to be put on your bookcase; the proximity to so many inferior works might lead someone to believe that Slaughterhouse-Five is comparable. I'd suggest framing the book and mounting it on your dining room wall, but that might prevent you from reading it again. Which you should. Immediately.
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