Slaughterhouse-Five

"Listen: Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time."And so it begins in the late Kurt Vonnegut's classic of American literature,  Slaughterhouse Five , the absurdist masterpiece that this veteran of the 'Nam Era first read in college in the early '70s. It was a time when peace protests were spreading across the United States, and disillusionment was growing in the ranks of pour troops in Vietnam.And then in June of 1972, a photo appeared in newspapers across the country and around the world, an image of a young Vietnamese girl running down the road, her body scorched by napalm, her face contorted in pain. That photograph, taken by Associated Press photographer Nick Ut remains a haunting image of the American war in Vietnam. This photo became one of the most famous and memorable photos of Vietnam, and won Nick Ut the Pulitzer prize in 1972, and is the subject of  The Girl in the Picture  by Denise Chong.Shortly after this photo had appeared in the news, I had read the section in this book where protagonist Billy Pilgrim had again become unstuck in time, and was seeing the firebombing of Dresden as if it was a movie being run backwards: "The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes." And Vonnegut ran this scene, quickly backwards in time, with Billy Pilgrim extrapolating, all the way back to Adam and Eve.I made the mistake of reading these few passages about Dresden in my Contemporary American Literature class, and all hell broke loose, mostly because the impact of Nick Ut's famous photo was on everyone's mind and being discussed from many aspects. The class discussions rapidly turned away from the discussions on Kurt Vonnegut's contributions to science fiction writing and literature in general, and didn't stop until the class was over. So it goes.The concepts of free will and fate that Vonnegut raises here can be thought provoking in themselves, and the author is also capable of adding a bit of hilarity in places where it's least expected. Not wanting to interject any spoilers here, but Billy has been kidnapped in a flying saucer and is taken to the planet Trafalmadore. These extraterrestrials appear (to humans) like upright toilet plungers with a hand atop, into which is set a single, green eye. During the trip to Tralfamadore, Billy asked for something to read. Among their "five million Earthling books on microfilm," the only actual book in English that they had was 'Valley of the Dolls' by Jacqueline Susann. "Billy read it, thought it was pretty good in spots. The people certainly had their ups and down, ups and downs."There have been many analyses of this book, many reviews, and most of them are far more thought provoking than this reviewer is going to get into here. The characters that proliferate this book become three-dimensional as Billy Pilgrim bounces back and forth in time. Paul Lazzaro is a memorable and obsessive character who appears in a very crucial role, but to describe him further would be a spoiler. Billy meets adult film star Montana Wildhack on the planet Trafamadore, where they both share a space in a zoo there, and Billy does have some interesting dreams about her as well... we'll leave it at that.Vonnegut continually uses the refrain "So it goes." This can appear when death or dying occur, as a transition to another subject, to explain what cannot be explained, and as comic relief. I heard or read somewhere that this appears over a hundred times, but I'm not counting. So it goes.Should note that the 1972 film  Slaughterhouse-Five  is available on DVD, and it's as faithful a film adaptation as one could find for a book such as this. It's expertly directed by George Roy Hill, and Michael Sacks really becomes the character as Billy Pilgrim, and Sharon Ganz is perfect as his overweight, overprotective wife. Ron Leibman is quite good as the loony and obsessed Paul Lazzaro, andWas glad to find this in Kindle format, as my last two printed copies of this book were borrowed by friends who had promised to return them when they finished. One did say that she was "still working on it" a couple of years later, but that she was having a tough time following it, as Billy Pilgrim becoming "unstuck in time" was difficult for her to follow. So it goes.There are too many good Vonnegut books to recommend here, and this reader has read almost all of those by this author. Some, like  Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage  might appeal to diehard Vonnegut fans more than those just beginning to explore his works. In Chapter 18 of that book, the author graded his own works, and some of them are as follows:* Player Piano: B*  God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater : A*  The Sirens of Titan : A*  Mother Night : A*  Cat's Cradle : A+*  Slaughterhouse Five : A+* Welcome to the Monkey House: B-* Happy Birthday, Wanda June: D*  Jailbird : AIn each of these grades, this reader will agree, and most if not all can be found here. But it's still Slaughterhouse Five that remains as my personal 5-star favorite. So it goes.2/22/2012

I write this review for the first-time Vonnegut reader. In my freshman year at Texas Tech University, we read "Breakfast of Champions" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (I'll call it BOC from now on.) It wasn't the first piece of illustrated literature I'd read, but all the quirky illustrations were simple, hand-drawn images of objects I never expected to be depicted in such a way, such as little girl underpants and a beaver. In BOC, Vonnegut (pardon if I don't put the Jr. on each time) introduced the character Kilgore Trout, a writer of science fiction. At one point, Kilgore Trout has an exchange with a truck driver that includes this conversation:“Excuse me,” said the truck driver to Trout, “I’ve got to take a leak.”“Back where I come from,” said Trout, “that means you’re going to steal a mirror. We call mirrors leaks.”“I never heard that before,” said the driver. He repeated the word: “Leaks.” He pointed to a mirror on a cigarette machine. “You call that a leak?”“Doesn’t it look like a leak to you?” said Trout.“No,” said the driver. “Where did you say you were from?”“I was born in Bermuda,” said Trout.About a week later, the driver would tell his wife that mirrors were called leaks in Bermuda, and she would tell her friends.[Vonnegut, Kurt. Breakfast of Champions (pp. 91-94). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.]I remember laughing out loud at that passage, Anyway, I fell in love with what I thought was his sense of humor and went on to read six more of his books. As I did, I got more and more depressed. I eventually quit reading his books because I couldn't take it. One of them that I never got around to reading was "Slaughterhouse-Five". I wish I had. It would have explained a lot.Like "Breakfast of Champions", Vonnegut put himself, along with his characters, into the books. This is especially true in "Slaughterhouse-Five" (which I will now refer to as S5). S5 chapter 1 begins with Vonnegut's own story. Chapter 2 begins the story of Vonnegut's avatar, Billy Pilgrim. The story, both the fictional and true elements, is how during the Second World War they got to the German city of Dresden and then survived its firebombing. Witnessing that event in particular and World War II, in general, had a profound effect on Vonnegut. He became charmingly cynical in the extreme.An NPR writer said this about him, "Kurt Vonnegut was a counterculture hero, a modern Mark Twain, an avuncular, jocular friend to the youth — until you got to know him." He wanted to reach young people with his writing even though he was 50 years old. So he created a writing voice that reached the Viet Nam-era youth to tell them his damaged views of life. It worked. Books like S5 and BOC flew off the shelves. Normally, you have to be dead a long time before they are teaching your books in freshman college courses unless you have become a countercultural hero. Such was the case. (BOC was published in 1973 and I was a freshman in 1975.)Listen:You may think I am warning you not to read this or any of his books, but it isn't true. I think he was a brilliant writer and truly was an American master. But, I also think you should inform yourself about what is going on behind the scenes. There is no lack of information about the enigma that was Vonnegut, so do a bit of digging and make sure you understand something about the trip you will take.One of the things you'll discover about his books is to watch for his "signature move". In BOC, the little drawings were the quirky window dressings he added. In S5, he uses the phrase "So it goes." When you read S5, you'll see this phrase every time death is mentioned, whether it is the death of a person, an idea, a product or whatever. There has been a fair bit of analysis written about what he meant by it. One of the things about World War II that deeply affected Vonnegut was the mass killing of people whether by firebombing (Dresden, Tokyo, etc) or the nuclear bombing of cities (Hiroshima, Nagasaki). This was death on a grand scale and it had a profound effect on his mind. In S5, there are over 100 references to death and each one is accompanied by "So it goes." Quite often, the references are both ghastly and ironic.Here is an example:"Early in 1968, a group of optometrists, with Billy among them, chartered an airplane to fly them from Ilium to an international convention of optometrists in Montreal. The plane crashed on top of Sugarbush Mountain, in Vermont. Everybody was killed but Billy. So it goes.While Billy was recuperating in a hospital in Vermont, his wife died accidentally of carbon-monoxide poisoning. So it goes."[Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five (p. 31). RosettaBooks. Kindle Edition.]I hope you enjoy "Slaughterhouse-Five"; I did. However, I protected myself by waiting until I was 63 and knew how to guard my mind. Others can tell you more about what you'll get from the story. I'm just here to make sure you are wearing your safety harness.

Het boek blijft maar uitelkaar vallen. Vanaf het begin vielen er al bladzijdes uit. Heb het proberen aan elkaar te lijmen maar het helpt niet.

This novel is written very well, it's a pleasure to read even if the topic is very dramatic. I strongly suggest to read it.

Ce n'est pas un roman historique dans le sens où il se veut être le plus détaillé possible mais plutôt un roman poétique sur la guerre. En effet, l'auteur arrive à exprimer des sentiments là où d'autres auraient cherché à faire des descriptions. Les parties imaginaires retracent bien la folie s'emparant des soldats et permet de faire un lien métaphorique avec les idées exposées et la brièveté de la vie que le narrateur s'efforce d'accepter. Un très bon livre qui ne se veut pas émouvant à en pleurer mais qui, par sa concision, dévoile la guerre avec plus d'horreur encore que les exagérations à outrance. Il m'a fait frissonner aux moments les plus écœurants.

Interesting book, as for the edition I didn't like it as much

Yes, it's SF... And it's fantasy. And it's about wars and their cruelty. And it's about Vietnam without saying a word about it, when you know the context. And it's about humans and how we behave, what we want, the sense of what we do. So, it's nice to read but makes you think beyond what you read.