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Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five

List Price: $7.50
Your Price: $6.75
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Well Written but overrated
Review: This is a well written, engaging sort of book. The story, such as it is (there's not much here), is told in a bright, likable style. It's hard to imagine anyone actually hating this. Having said all that, though, it's also true that this is a profoundly overrated work. The great theme here, "war sucks", has been told fifty billion times before, in fifty billion more effective ways. The best anti-war novel of Vonnegut's era is easily Heller's Catch-22. In comparison, Slaughterhouse-Five seems very small and minor.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This book had a unique concept that kept my interest.
Review: This book is one of the greatest time-travel and antiwar stories. It follows Billy Graham through his fragmented journey, which takes place through the bombing of Dresden in World War II. It shows Billy in all phases of his life, concentrating on his shattering experiences as a prisoner of war.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Classic
Review: Slaughterhouse Five is by far one of the greatest books ever written. The constant skipping around of the writter may distract some readers, but in actuallity, it raises the vlue of the compelling story of Billy Pilgrim. Never has a book so greatly captured my interest. Slaughterhouse Five is definatly one of the new classics, and will remain a classic for decades to come.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Interesting subject, overrated style
Review: Though this book had an intriguing premise and a fairly unique concept (becoming "unstuck" in time), the intrusion of the book's self-proclaimed author during the Billy Pilgrim story grew tiresome. As another reviewer said, this book is "mercifully short." The Dresden scene at the end of the book is well-written, though.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It was one of the most powerful books I've ever read
Review: While I was a bit suprised by the plot of the book, I wasn't expecting the whole unstuck in time thing when I picked it up. Nevertheless I found the theme to be particularly moving. The way these dijointed events all interconnected. I couldn't give it a five because I had to right a chacter analysis of it and found it so frustating that I'm kinda bitter.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: tedious, pretentious novel
Review: To judge by your reviews, I'm certainly in the minority. I read this book for a reading group and the best thing I can say is that it was mercifully short. I found the style disjointed and artifical. True, it gave one a desolate feeling about war and its follies, but cerainly other books have done it better, certainly in a more attainable less tedious style.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What can a 26th review of this great book. . .
Review: add to the encomiums? The vast, modern anti-war literature contains but one equal, but Celine required over 700 pages to say the same things. Slaughterhouse Five wins the prize for economy; and for great story telling. I never "believed" in science fiction until I took that little trip to Tralfamadore with Billy Pilgrim and heard the Message about the Golden Rule. Is it correct that the Golden Rule is not to be found anywhere in the Bible? If not, then I can now understand why. When I lie awake sleepless at night I sometimes pass those crazy hours recounting to myself Billy's time on Tralfamadore and reflect upon the true meaning of Charity. If all of the foregoing seems too personal a tale then I am able to say with some certainty that the reader has never been possessed by a book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the most important books to read.
Review: This book goes beyond most books. There truly are very few books that can transcend this far. Just describing this book is difficult, but I'll give it a try.

It starts with an introduction from the author about what went into the book at first, and basically tells the entire story, which seems to suggest that it's plotline doesn't matter (which is even more amplified by it's unpredictabe path), and what matters most is the content.

It then plunges the reader into a mish-mash of the life and times of Billy Pilgrim (who's name suggests even more about himself). Very little seems to take place in Dresden (the seemingly main point of the stroy based on the title and the introduction), yet the story seems to focus on it somehow.

That is pretty much all that can be said, because to try to explain the plot would be completely fruitless.

So it goes.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Compare with Private Ryan
Review: Just a thought on the anti-war theme: compare the totalsenselessness of Billy Pilgrim's presence in Europe (as he stumblesaround comically in his circus clothes) to the theoretically condemning but in fact celebratory aura surrounding Speilberg's little band of virtuous men fighting the Germans. Even though the specific mission seemed meaningless, in Private Ryan the lager war makes perfect sense--we have to hold this bridge so the artillery can't cross, so the Germans can't gain the advantage, etc. In Slaughterhouse Five, the larger war is given no story to justify it, we are simply dropped (like Billy) into the chaos and senselessness of war, and never given a coherent narrative with which to make sense of it. That is why, it seems to me, Slaughtehouse Five is a brilliant anti-war novel, and Private Ryan is more of the same old s***.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My own opinion is that it is the best novel ever.
Review: What my college English professor said about this novel basically wraps it up. He said, "If you die and have not read this book, you will have died an illiterate person". Therefore, you should read this book. It will make you see the world in a different way.


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