Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut

Billy Pilgrim is a time traveler in his own life. He often jumps to different times in his life - forward or backward. While captured as a prisoner-or-war in World War II, he suddenly finds himself 30 years in the future as an optometrist. He then returns to World War II. At another time he finds himself on his honeymoon, or after a plane crash he survives, or kidnapped to the planet Tralfamador. Billy's adult life is overlaid with one major incident. His prisoner-of-war camp was in Dresden, Germany, when it was firebombed.

From here I'm not sure I can explain much more of the story line. Kurt Vonnegut uses Billy Pilgrim's unusual story to write an anti-war novel, a satire on every day life, and a cynical look at the world around us. Slaughterhouse-Five is written using a familiar Vonnegut ploy. The author writes back and forth in time and each time's story line builds slowly through the book.

Vonnegut took his own experience from World War II as the basis of this book. He was a prisoner-of-war in Dresden when it was bombed. Like Billy Pilgrim, he survived with his fellow prisoners by hiding underground in a nonused animal slaughterhouse. He gives statistics of the devastation of the quiet, beautiful city early in the book. Every school child learns about the Hiroshima bombing in Japan. But I had not heard about this incident at Dresden that claimed so many more lives at the time. Dresden, fortunately, didn't have the radioactive fallout afterwards. Instead, using Vonnegut's descriptions, it looked like a lunar landscape.

I had read Slaughterhouse-Five years ago and often would get lost. Vonnegut was an excellent writer, but his novels aren't easily accessible if the reader isn't ready to concentrate. His short stories bring their points across quickly and are more easily read. This time I bought my own paperback copy and read the novel with pencil in hand. The notes I made throughout, then the discussion my book club group had later, help me appreciate the subtleties of the book more the second time I read it.

I recommend this book to the person who is ready to appreciate skewed irony, cynicism, and satire. Don't look for a feel good, chronologically straight forward novel here. Be prepared to have your thoughts and perceptions challenged.