Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel
by Kurt Vonnegut
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kurt VonnegutEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1999-01-12
ISBN: 0385333846
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Book Reviews of Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel
Book Review: SH5
Summary: 5 Stars
"The Things They Carried" is a plethora of experiences that leaves the reader to truly grasp the nefariousness of war. Tim O'Brien's book is a plane to travel readers to places and feelings that they would normally not be capable of arriving at. Vietnam is not a place that many high school students get the opportunity to visit, nor is war an experience that many go through at this age. O'Brien corrects this privation by transporting readers into the lives of fictional soldiers like Rat Kiley or Curt Lemon, neither of which survive the horrors in Nam. Their fear becomes tangible, their fear becomes the readers fear, their fear becomes imbued with importance as O'Brien attempts to guide readers through his disapprobation of war. O'Brien writes with a profundity that can only come with personal experience, he wrote "The Things They Carried" as a memoir of his bellicose days and to promote his anti-war sentiment. The irony in the story lies, however, in that none of the characters are real, although certain parts of the story may be true, O'Brien expounds the soldiers so that he can almost control the reader's emotions. The soldiers experiences and feelings are such that the reader can feel the gush of wind as a bullet narrowly misses or become lugubrious at the loss of a close friend. The readers' journey leaves them in lassitude at the effort put forth in fighting the war alongside the soldiers.
Vietnam breathes, although some may doubt that this is possible, for the soldiers Vietnam is a living entity. What I find truly meaningful is the things the soldiers carried, not only did they have to carry their unit and their equipment they had to carry fear, love, and hope. Fear that is constantly ruminated upon only becomes heavier and O'Brien does an excellent job of expressing this to the readers. He also shows the unfairness in war, the men do not want to be in Vietnam, they do not want to fight, they do not want to be so far away from home. And when the soldiers do fight as is expected of them, they come home, but life can never be the same after such an unmitigated experience as war. Men can be left vacuous after a war they did not fight of their own volition, and because the US did not win the war in Vietnam, the soldiers did not get the respect they deserved when they returned home because the general public blamed them for fighting the war, even though they did not want to fight it in the first place. But, as the saying goes, it's a rich man's war and a poor man's fight.
This book provides the impetus to make people realize the error of war, a necessary cathartic act that could possibly make this world a better place. I therefore can say with perfect perspicuity and aplomb that this book deserves five stars because it is a truly heart-wrenching and enlightening story.
Summary of Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel
Launched in November, Dell's Kurt Vonnegut reissue program continues with one of the world's great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous firebombing 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.Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.
Don't let the ease of reading fool you--Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters..." Slaughterhouse-Five (taken from the name of the building where the POWs were held) is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy--and humor.
Vonnegut Jr., Kurt Books
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