Slaughterhouse-Five

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Summary: From Dreseden to the Mulit-dimensional world of Tralfamadore
Review: Kurt Vonnegut writes a perplexing anti-war novel based on a witless man named Billy Pilgrim who battles with his trauma of the bombing of Dresden. In the last days of World War II, Billy is left with his questions of life, death, and whether or not people have free will. But Billy is unable to find any answers. Billy tries to deal with his trauma by creating alien figures called Tralfamadorians and adopt their values of life and ability to travel in and out of time. As one Tralfamadorian states to Billy, "I am Tralfamadorian, seeing all times as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. It simply is . Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all as I said before, bugs in amber." Vonngut incorporates the theme of predestination into Billy life to allow him to deal with the many traumatic situations in his life. Billy's abduction by the Tralfamadorians takes him away to a foreign planet or a pleasant place in his life when he is confused or distressed. In Slaughterhouse Five, Billy takes the reader to many different moments in his life to give the reader a true understanding of what he has experienced. Through Billy's story, Vonnegut is able to ask the question of whether life is set in stone or whether the human perception of freedom to make choices is just another foolish notion that people create in order to have some control over their lives. And it is a question that Vonnegut leaves to the reader to decide. If you are interested in reading an anti-war novel that debated the question of free will and predestination of life, Slaughterhouse Five is definitely a book that will strike your interest.

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Summary: Aliens and Predestination? Oh My!!!
Review: Kurt Vonnegut creates an intricate and creative story of science fiction while still writing an anti-war novel. " Slaughterhouse-Five " focuses on an incredibly silly character named Billy Pilgrim. After a series of tragic events, aliens called Tralfamadorians abduct Pilgrim. These aliens have the ability to travel to any moment in time whenever they wish. They teach Pilgrim how to travel through time and we find him constantly traveling back and forth through his own life at random. We find Pilgrim one moment reliving the firebombing of Dresden and on the very next page teeing off at a country club ten years later. Incidents exactly like this can be found adorned through the book along with Vonnegut's distinct wit and black humor. One of the stronger points in the book deals with free will and predestination. Billy Pilgrim and the aliens believe that everyone's life is set in stone and everything that we do was destined to happen. One Tralfamadorian tells Pilgrim, I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will." If such a thing were true then obviously the notion of free will is nothing more than human imagination used to fool ourselves. Thought provoking subjects such as this grab the reader's attention and never lets go. Although the writing style is a bit strange and takes time to get used to, Vonnegut manages to weave an intricately detailed world of laughter, war horrors, and moral issues. Slaughterhouse-Five is a truly creative and incredibly entertaining read which comes highly recommended.

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Summary: Vonnegut's best, and a True American Classic
Review: Listen: Vonnegut does nothing less that create a modern American masterpiece. His vivid descriptions, realistic characters, and utter refusal to tell a story chronologically all make for an amazing work. This book is a must!

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Summary: The finest anti war book ever written
Review: Vonnegut shows us through expanded fiction that war does not only harm those that it injures in present time. Billy Pilgrim lives or should I say lived everyday, trapped in his dream world, a world he constructs to rationalized the bombing and killing that took place in Dresden. And so it goes.

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Summary: BAD
Review: I didn't enjoy this book at all. I didn't like the constant skipping around of text.

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Summary: I enjoyed reading this book.
Review: In reading this book, I gained knowledge of one's world. How things in life affect every aspect of our being. Somethings are not for our understanding and the writer clearly shows this. He lets us into his personal life and his thoughts. This book is hard to follow at first, but once the climax erupts, a new world of understanding is opened. I would recommend this book to anyone who is not afraid to hear the truth. This book is real and I think it needed to be written. It will not stop war, but it will open many minds to the effects of war. Thanks Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and Kurt Vonnegut.

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Summary: overwhelmingly engrossing: a must read
Review: There are few books that I tell my children that they must read. This is one of them. From the time I first read it years and years ago, I have never forgotten it. I want to say that it is unique, but this word is too overused to convey how I think this book stands out. Read it. You won't forget it, and then only with difficulty will you look at things the way you once did.

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Summary: Extrodinary book from an extrodinary author
Review: I actually read it a year ago, but I remember what a great book it was. Of course, Kurt Vonnegut has an extrodinarily abstract mind, and it takes a similar person to follow this story. If your one that likes a traditional storyline with a start, middle, then end, then this is not the book for you. Instead this book jumps all over the place from pas,t to present, to future, to alien worlds, to World War II, to a regular house. I personally LOVED his interpretation of alien life and I think he does an extrodinary job describing certain theorys that I previously thought were inconceivable. Kurt Vonnegut has a wonderful way with words and I definatly recommend this book to the open-minded. -Tyler DeLisle

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Summary: This is the best and most interesting book I've ever read.
Review: This book is amazing. The story is so wonderfully complex and the characters are very memorable and concrete. Once you read this book you look at the world in a whole different way. The ideas and topics in it are adressed so eloquently.

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Summary: Brilliant
Review: I started "Slaughterhouse Five" three times before I finally got going. Then, I finished. Then, I read it again. Three reads later, I can only conclude: this book is brilliant. It is easily one of the Top 10 books of fiction written this century. It is my favorite Vonnegut book (although "Player Piano" is perhaps more ambitious) and one of my top two or three I've ever read. So it goes. It took so many tries because it is difficult to get a grasp on his story. At first, I got bogged down in the fact he was writing a war story of sorts, which can prove tedious. But once I got the "unstuck in time" concept, it became rewarding. And what a reward! Reading this book can give you a fresh philosophy of life (and time, of course) at the very least. The theory that the Tralfamorians (the aliens in the story) have about time gives a new perspective on how we view events, cause and effect, living and all sorts of other stuff. So it goes. "Five" wasn't the first Vonnegut work I read; new Vonnegut readers may not want to start with it. Or maybe they do. I could write on and on about the story, but let's just cut to the chase: read it, and draw your own conclusions. So it goes.