Rating: 
Summary: Complicated journey
Review: Vonnegut didn't write a single novel that was a flop--all are good, nay, great, and "Slaughter House Five" tops the list of his achievements. So many authors owe a debt of gratitude to Vonnegut for his insight, humor, and style: David Sedaris, I think, was probably influenced by Vonnegut, as were Jackson McCrae with his "Bark of the Dogwood," Pynchon ("Gravity's Rainbow") and most certainly, Tom Robbins with "Even Cowgirls get the Blues." All these authors have something in common with Vonnegut, but what makes the master so different is his insane sense of timing and his ability to convince us that HE really believes in what is happening, therefore, so should we. The main character of Billy Pilgrim is like only a handful of other characters created over the past hunderd years (Ignatius in "Confederacy of Dunces" or Strekfus Ovid Beltzenschmidt in "Bark of the Dogwood") in that he is so bizarre, so "off the beaten path," yet so "real" that we fall in love with him (or at least watching him) and want to follow him through this bizarre and complicated journey that is "Slaughter House Five." Years ago, this book was banned by many libraries and schools. I find it interesting as well as refreshing that many teachers are recommending this great work of fiction to their students. Perhaps Vonnegut really has made a difference in the world--let's hope so.
Rating:
Summary: Read it again
Review: I know this novel fairly well having read it several times (once aloud to my students). It is about all time being always present if only we knew, or could realize it, or had a sense about time in the same way we have senses for light and sound. It is also about the Allied fire bombings of Dresden which killed more people than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. (And so it goes.) Kurt Vonnegut begins as though writing a memoir and advises us that "All of this happened, more or less..." Of course it did not, and yet, as with all real fiction, it is psychologically true. His protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, an unlikely hero, somewhat in the manner of unlikely heroes to come like Forest Gump and the hero of Jerzy Kosinski's Being There, transcends time and space as he bumbles along. This is a comédie noire--a "black comedy"--not to be confused with "film noir," a cinematic genre in which the bad guys may win or at least they are made sympathetic. In comédie noire the events are horrific but the style is light-hearted. What the genres have in common is a non-heroic protagonist. This is also a totally original work written in a most relaxing style that fuses the elements of science fiction with realism. It is easy to read (which is one of the reasons it can be found on the high school curriculum in our public schools). It is sharply satirical, lampooning not only our moral superiority, our egocentricity, but our limited understanding of time and space. And of course it is an anti-war novel in the tradition of All Quiet on the Western Front and Johnny Got His Gun. Vonnegut's view of time in this novel is like the stratification of an upcropping of rock: time past and time present are there for us to see, but also there is time future. Billy Pilgrim learns from the Tralfamadorians (who kidnapped him in 1967) that we are actually timeless beings who experience what we call the past, present and future again and again. And so Billy goes back to the war and forward to his marriage, and to Tralfamadore again and again. He learns that the Tralfamadorians see the stars not as bright spots of light but as "rarefied, luminous spaghetti" and human beings as "great millepedes with babies' legs at one end and old people's legs at the other." So time is not a river, nor is it a snake with its tail in its mouth. It is omnipresent, yet some things occur before and some after, but always they occur again. And so it goes. What I admire most about this most admirable novel is how easily and naturally Vonnegut controls the narrative and how effortlessly seems its construction. It is almost as if Vonnegut sat down one day and let his thoughts wander, and when he was through, here is this novel. In a sense, Vonnegut invented a new novelistic genre, combining fantasy with realism, touched by fictionalized memoir, penned in a comedic mode as horror is overtaken by a kind of fatalistic yet humorous view of life. Note here the appearance of Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut's alter-ego, the science fiction writer who is said to have invented Tralfamadore. Bottom line: read this without preconceptions and read it without regard to the usual constraints. Just let it flow and accept it for what it is, a juxtaposition of several genres, a tale of fiction, that--as fiction should--transcends time and space.
Rating:
Summary: Slaughterhouse Five
Review: One of the great aspects of Slaughterhouse Five is its ability to challenge the reader's idea of reality and various social norms, namely war. Billy Pilgrim, the main character of the novel, is born in Illium, New York. At a young age, Billy enlists to fight for America in World War II and claims witness to one of the biggest blunders of World War II, the bombing of Dresden, Germany. After Billy gets out of Germany and the war alive, he claims to have been abducted by an alien race called the Tralfamidorians, a species far more advanced than the human race. As he shares his outrageous experiences and the ideology of the Tralfamadorian race with the reader and other characters of the novel, his credibility and sanity soon become skeptical, landing him in a mental institution. While the character of Billy Pilgrim is simply an intermediary through which Kurt Vonnegut displays his ideas, the reader can not help but wonder if Billy and his beliefs are valid, or a figment of the imagination. Even if you do not enjoy anti-war or science fiction novels, this book will bring the reader far more than what is expected opening up a world of new ideas and endless possibilities.
Rating:
Summary: So it goes.
Review: Slaughterhouse 5, or Slaughterhouse five, or The Children's Crusade, also called A Duty-Dance with Death, is described by the author Kurt Vonnegut's alter-ego, Billy Pilgrim as a `fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod [and smoking too much], who, as an American Infantry Scout Hors De Combat, As a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, "The Florence of the Elbe," a long time ago, and survived to tell the tell. This is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from. Peace.' So it goes.
The book is an anti-war book, but tells us that it is about as useful being an anti-war book, as being an anti-typhoon book, meaning that some things will never change. Vonnegut tells us this by giving us the story of Billy Pilgrim, whose most important role in life was to witness the secret American British bombing of Dresden, where 135,000 died, and who spent most of his time as an American Prisoner of War, a survivor who can tell the youth of today what war is all about, by using his shellshock trauma induced time travel capabilities, given to him by the Tralfamadore aliens, to revisit the war, so that he can write a book about it, goes to see old war buddies, becoming unstuck in time, his life as a series of scenes in a non-linear fashion which ends up making linear sense, even though it did not at the time. So it goes.
Slaughterhouse 5 is a very interesting and somewhat touching series of events that finally all come home to roost in the final pages, the loss of man is the gain of man, whether we like it or not, is not the point, Darwin told us that this is what we are designed to do, Billy Pilgrim becomes an optometrist in the process, marries a woman who suddenly has a series problem, while Bill ends up in a zoo on an alien planet to produce children with Montana Wildhack, a famous movie actress, while trying to write his Dresdon story, filled with death, a plane accident where he was the only survivor following his POW term, fact from fiction, he thinks the rescue party are nazis, it sets off the time travel again. So it goes.
Vonnegut is not all down and war depressing however. His humour captured brilliantly by such antics as considering the money tree that grew hundred dollar bills, gems and bank bonds, feeding off the people who met the quicksand by its base, or a young Jesus who once built a cross with his father so the Romans could use it to do something to a protestor that they didn't like. When the wit is there it scores in aces. You have never read the likes of such clowning around before, although compared to Joseph Heller's Catch 22, this one is more personal, less satirical, more direct and exposes that horrible World War II bombing of Dresden. In 1941 Charles Portal, A British Air Staff officer, put forward the idea that entire cities and towns should be bombed. Air Marshall Arthur Harris agreed in February 1942. It was napalmed in 1945. Vonnegut made it very public in this 1969 novel. It was revealed by the historian David Irving in 1963 in his publication, "The Destruction of Dresdon". So it goes.
Billy spends the final days of his life out across New York looking to tell a radio show his story, ends up finding a world war II sci-fi book author's book as window dressing, attempts to buy the book as a memory keepsake because he met the author and knew the war buddy who introduced him to the books, and is nearly arrested, and or committed, old age coupled with the dying man's last bastion of whatever his mind can make of it all, gives us much to ponder in death, by remembering our lives, Pilgrim travels in his memory and says that death is living ones memories over and over again... so best be good... and enjoy life. So it goes.
Rating:
Summary: Try Something Unusual!
Review:
This book is quite possibly the best I've ever read, and I've read a lot. The problem is that the book is very hard to explain because frankly, it's odd.
This book is an anti-war novel which professes that it is not an anti-war novel. Written during the Vietnam War about World War Two, the book explores the atrocities of war without becoming maudlin. Vonnegut is wickedly poignant as he follows Billy Pilgrim, the main character, as be becomes "unstuck in time."
"Unstuck in time?!?" you say. Yes, the novel is not written in chronological order. It leaps around from time period to time period, and from planet to planet as well. But we'll leave some of that for you to discover.
This is not a difficult book to read. It reads like a light science fiction novel. But then, the issues it discusses are difficult. Vonnegut discusses war in a manner that gently disembowels, if you will. Like I said, it's hard to explain. Check it out. I think you'll agree that it's a "keeper." Another Amazon pick I'd quickly like to recommend is The Losers' Club by Richard Perez, another short, fast and memorable read.
Rating:
Summary: A firestorm of humor
Review: The bombing of Dresden is what Slaughterhouse 5 is really about. The first chapter accounting for Vonnegut's own experience as a prisoner of war, who witnessed the bombing himself. He explains how this is a book about those events, how it is not a big book, because only so much can be said. A comment which is true, this is not a big book, just over 150 pages, but even with that Dresden remains a presence. Something inevitable and dark, which can't be shifted, and reflects throughout the real tragedy that is Billy Pilgrim's life. Even if he manages to shrug everything else off, we the reader are left with the effect of Vonnegut's story.Its funny too.
Rating:
Summary: Just brilliant
Review: I read Slaughterhouse-Five three times and enjoyed every part of it those moments that I occupied myself with the book. Vonnegut is an amazing writer, so creative, brilliant, clever and witty that some of his words are difficult to forget. This was the first book I read by Kurt Vonnegut, and it was recommended to me by a friend. While I was reading it the first time, I tried to understand why it had become so much of a talked about read. At the end of it, I understood. As someone who witnessed the Dresden bombing, the author portrayed his insight of war through the character of Billy Pilgrim, who was serving the US army during World War II a private. It is a fantastic anti-war book, or more a book with a sobering effect on war mongers. The overwhelming destruction of picturesque and artistic Dresden, by Allied bombers is at the centre of the book. The alien part of it was marvelous. This book is easy to understand, the setting is great and the pace is fast, confirmed by the fact that I lost my attention for a minute while reading the book until the last words. This is a book to recommend to any reader who accepts the realities of life.
Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT,THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES
Rating:
Summary: I recommend hearing it as a book on tape.
Review: I could add to the volumes of literary criticism that fills the reviews of this book, but what's the point of that? Rather, I will recommend that you hear the book as a book on tape - the book's a stream of consciuosness, disjointed approach works very well on tape. The reader shifts from one scene to another as easily as Billy Pilgrim does. The version I heard was not the one available here. Mine was narrated by Jose Ferrer and he did a wonderful job. Too bad Ferrer has passed on. So it goes.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite books ever!
Review: This was the first book I read by Kurt Vonnegut, and in my opinion, the best book to read as an introduction to his work. The next book I read after SF-5 was Cat's Cradle, and I doubt I could have understood it if it wasn't for SF-5. Vonnegut's writing is not for everyone - he often uses strange, outlandish elements of science fiction and the like that take some getting used to.
Slaughterhouse-five follows the story of Billy Pilgrim, a private in the US army during World War II. Vonnegut tells us right away that Billy is 'unstuck in time', and throughout the book we make seemingly random trips to parts of Billy's life. Later in the book, Billy is allegedly captured by aliens and taken to their planet, Tralfamadore. In he very center of the plot is the destruction of Dresden, a completely civilian city in Germany that was demolished by an Allied firebombing. A reference to Dresden crops up almost every other page, revealing Vonnegut's obsession with this event he witnessed. There are many seemingly contradictory elements in SF-5, such as Tralfamdorian philosphy vs the theme of the book.
However, anyone who says that SF-5 is just a silly, mashed-together jumble of weird, absurd, unconnected events is reading it too shallowly. In English class, I wrote an in-depth literay analysis of this book. I picked a very narrow topic and still wrote 16 pages without having to fluff it out at all. I could have written thirty pages, but the limit was 10 (I eventually pared it down to 12).
A lot of people don't like SF-5 because they say its theme "War is Bad" gets too repetitive. A careful reader, though, can see that Vonnegut approaches the topic from many different angles, even from the seemingly random science fiction elements. SF-5 is a magnificently deep, poignant, yet still funny book. It is one of my favorites and I reccomend it to everyone without hesitation!
Anyone who is having trouble understanding this book should try and read some criticism or analysis of it. Go to the library, go to the computer card catalog, type in "Slaughterhouse-five, Vonnegut" and see what you get.
Rating:
Summary: Try Something Unusual!
Review: This book is quite possibly the best I've ever read, and I've read a lot. The problem is that the book is very hard to explain because frankly, it's odd.
This book is an anti-war novel which professes that it is not an anti-war novel. Written during the Vietnam War about World War Two, the book explores the atrocities of war without becoming maudlin. Vonnegut is wickedly poignant as he follows Billy Pilgrim, the main character, as be becomes "unstuck in time."
"Unstuck in time?!?" you say. Yes, the novel is not written in chronological order. It leaps around from time period to time period, and from planet to planet as well. But we'll leave some of that for you to discover.
This is not a difficult book to read. It reads like a light science fiction novel. But then, the issues it discusses are difficult. Vonnegut discusses war in a manner that gently disembowels, if you will. Like I said, it's hard to explain. Check it out. I think you'll agree that it's a "keeper." Another Amazon pick I'd quickly like to recommend is The Losers' Club by Richard Perez, another short, fast and memorable read.
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