Slaughterhouse-Five | Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse-Five | Kurt Vonnegut | Poo-tee-weet

books:

Slaughterhouse-Five

	Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut Dial Press Trade Paperback, 1999 - 288 pages average customer review:based on 708 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

Wonderful

This book is wonderful. The story is very complex and yet so simple to read. It makes you see how things in your life can really affect who you are and who you become. I recommend this book to anyone who is open minded and not afraid of hearing the truth.

Poo-tee-weet

As a young man fighting in World War II, Kurt Vonnegut was captured by the Germans and taken as a prisoner to Dresden, where he witnessed the bombing of the city by the Allied Air Forces. He only survived because he and his fellow-prisoners were being held deep in the cellars of an abattoir known in German as "Schlachthof Fuenf", or "Slaughterhouse Five". Hence the title of the novel, which tells the story of a young American soldier named Billy Pilgrim, who is captured by the Germans and taken as a prisoner to Dresden, where he witnesses the bombing of the city, only surviving because he and his fellow-prisoners are being held deep in the cellars of an abattoir.

Although the book is partly autobiographical, it is by no means a realistic depiction of the horrors of war. It is highly experimental in style, with a strong element of science-fiction. Billy is described as being "unstuck in time", which means that he is an inadvertent time-traveller, who can suddenly find himself whisked from one point in his life to another without warning. (Billy's surname is probably meant to have a symbolic meaning- he is on an uncertain, random pilgrimage through life).

Vonnegut's writing is similarly unstuck in time. There is no smooth linear narrative progressing logically from one event to the next; the narration rather hops, seemingly randomly, from one part of Billy's life to another. We learn (but not necessarily in that order) about his marriage after the war to a girl named Valencia, about how he becomes a successful optometrist in upstate New York, about how he survives a plane crash and about his wife's death shortly afterwards, and about his own murder in the 1970s. (The book itself was actually published in 1969). Most bizarrely, we learn how he is kidnapped by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, who take him back to their world to keep him in a zoo and mate him with a porn star named Montana Wildhack.

Experimental novels often have the reputation of being wilfully obscure and difficult to read. "Slaughterhouse Five" is neither. Vonnegut's prose is wonderfully lucid, and although his narrative may lack strict chronological logic, the sequence of events has a logic of its own. For example the bombing, which is in chronological terms one of the earlier events in the novel, is placed near the end, because it is the most powerful event in emotional terms and therefore makes a suitable climax.

Because of the central role played in it by the bombing of Dresden, "Slaughterhouse Five" has often been described as an anti-war novel. Yet in the opening chapter Vonnegut relates a (possibly invented) conversation with a friend who asks him why he doesn't write an anti-glacier book instead of an anti-war book, implying that wars are as easy to stop as glaciers and that anti-war books are therefore futile. This attitude fits in with the Tralfamadorian philosophy of life, something frequently referred to in the book. Unlike humans, who can see only one point in time at once, the Tralfamadorians can see the whole of their lives, past present and future. This means that they know about future events before they actually occur and therefore believe that there is no point in trying to alter or avoid them. After his return to Earth, Billy becomes hugely popular and successful by preaching this philosophy to his fellow Earthlings.

At times it seems as if Vonnegut himself is preaching a similar philosophy. This attitude is emphasised by his frequent use of the phrase "so it goes", used here to mean something like "that's the way things are" or "that's life", every time someone dies or something unfortunate occurs. It did, however, seem to me entirely possible that Vonnegut may not have intended his apparent advocacy of passive fatalism to have been taken at face value. This may simply have been an ironic way of putting an anti-war message across. This is not an anti-war book in the sense that it makes an intellectual case for pacifism, nor does it address the strong counter-argument that the Nazi regime was so aggressive and brutal that the war against it was morally justified. Vonnegut rather attempts through the use of irony to reveal the absurdity of war, just as Joseph Heller does in that other great American satirical anti-war novel, "Catch-22". Billy and his fellow-prisoners only survive the bombing because they are protected by a slaughterhouse, a building normally associated with killing. After the destruction, one of those prisoners is executed by the Nazis for the risibly minor crime of stealing a teapot from the ruins. The last words in the book are given to a bird: "Poo-tee-weet". Perhaps that is the only meaningful comment possible.

for more information click here

Slaughterhouse-Five

Fantastic movie with some tragic, sad, happy, funny moments! Michael Sacks is a fantastic actor! Awesome movie! The movie is based on the book, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I interpret it as being time-travel but without a time-machine. Smacks of 2001: Space Oddesy I had seen, but much, much better! Based on an American soldier's life in Germany during the 2nd World War. Highly recommend this movie for all science fiction aficianados! [Don't want to give away the ending. :)

Outstanding reading by E Hawke. Buy Cat's Cradle as well.

Outstanding reading by E Hawke. Billy Pilgrim, presents a timeless player, like Don Quixote. He's absurd with his surroundings. Just like you are. Buy Cat's Cradle as well.

for more information click here

I was looking for something more

I was left disappointed by Slaughterhouse-five. I see the creativity no doubt, and I also see the ease at which it reads. What I don't see is a top 20 of all time science fiction books. This book as it is is borderline science fiction at all. What Kurt calls time travel is only Billy Pilgrim remembering the past. Obviously his abduction by aliens was a result of his skull being fractured.

I am just amazed that over 400 reviews of this book give it a 5 star rating. It just isn't that good plain and simple. Kurt has the ability to tell a story but this one just doesn't work. Too much reminiscent jumping and not enough science fiction. The satire falls empty and has no teeth. I would have given this book a 2 star rating if not for the unique writing style utilized by Kurt.

Definitely a passerby and not worth the reading. Save your eyes for something else.

for more information click here