Quickie Amazon Summary: Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the
world's great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of
Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of
our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.
While this
book is fiction, it centers around Kurt Vonnegut’s personal experiences in World War II. Billy Pilgrim witnesses countless
horrors and acts of violence, the likes of which were hard to stomach. He
becomes “unstuck in time” and the novel bounces back and forth between
different points in his life, even the future. He mentions at several points
being abducted by an alien race, the Tralfamadorians, perhaps exhibiting clear signs of PTSD from guilt and fantasizing of a different past. This
book hit hard, relentlessly and unflinchingly bearing the atrocities war
inflicts on an individual’s psyche.
Its primary
intention, I felt, was to point out the desensitization of real world problems.
Whenever death of any kind is mentioned in the book, he concludes the thought
with the words “so it goes.” This is a clear attempt to come to grips with what
he was dealing with. During the war, Billy Pilgrim observes many gruesome
things, including piles of charred bodies, a fellow soldier dying of gangrene,
and someone being shot by a firing squad for stealing a teapot. After a while,
it becomes clear that saying “so it goes” is all he can really do to cope with
the countless death toll he experiences.
It is a
harsh, brutal, and surprisingly funny novel at times. There is a moment in the novel in which Billy is taken up to the Tralfamadorian spacecraft, and put on display like a zoo animal for the Tralfamadorian public. He describes the experience as being quite pleasant, because as far as the Tralfamadorians knew, he was a perfect representation of the human race. He has sex with a porn star (also abducted), has a child with her, and even describes himself having a "tremendous wang." All hilarity aside, this entire experience is not so much a grisly abduction, but more of a pleasant vacation. This seems to emulate what Billy dreams his experience as a prisoner of war could have been, trying his damnedest to rewrite what reality served him in his past.
Whether this novel has influenced me personally as to the morality or necessity of war, I’d say it has. It brought to light many things for me that I’d never considered, particularly in the way of POW’s. How they cope with tragedy, as well as good fortune, are not often dismissible. They are lasting impacts. They watch their comrades die at the hands of senseless murder, disease, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. War is unforgiving and does not discriminate. I’d recommend this to anyone. Give it a chance, and really listen to what Vonnegut has to say.
Whether this novel has influenced me personally as to the morality or necessity of war, I’d say it has. It brought to light many things for me that I’d never considered, particularly in the way of POW’s. How they cope with tragedy, as well as good fortune, are not often dismissible. They are lasting impacts. They watch their comrades die at the hands of senseless murder, disease, or simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. War is unforgiving and does not discriminate. I’d recommend this to anyone. Give it a chance, and really listen to what Vonnegut has to say.
Rating: 10/10
Quote: “All time is all time. It does not change. It does
not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by
moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.”
Purchase here on Amazon Smile and donate to a charity of
your choice! I choose The Foundation to Decrease Worldsuck!
Next novel: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
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Tyler
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