Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel
by Kurt Vonnegut
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Book Reviews of Slaughterhouse-Five: A Novel
Book Review: Exposing War Through Litotes
Summary: 4 Stars
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five was written in 1969, in the middle of the Vietnam War. However, his story is not directly about Vietnam, but about his own war experience during World War II. Although it is an anti-war book its purpose is not to stop war, but to expose it and its terrible effects. His style both aids and hinders in creating the effects of frustration and understanding he wants from his readers.
Vonnegut always wanted to write a book about his experience of the Dresden bombings. He was finally able to write this story during the Vietnam War. Vonnegut was always frustrated with the fact that people named World War II the "Good War" and he makes this point in his sardonic account of the war. His purpose is not to try and stop the war in Vietnam; he simply wants people to understand that no war is good. As Tim O'Brien says, "war is just another name for death". Obvious right? Not always. Some people's perceptions of war are that it is a glamorous experience full of brave, strong, and morally driven soldiers.
Vonnegut stabs all common war misconceptions through the heart as he reveals the ridiculous nature of war. He introduces his main character Billy Pilgrim as a ribald. Before the war he studies to be an optometrist and is then shipped off to war and proves useless. He is opiated by his war experiences and is ready to die, but his fellow soldier, Roland Weary, will not give up on this pathetic excuse for a soldier. They are then captured by Germans and ironically Weary dies, but Pilgrim lives. When Billy returns home after the war he says that he is abducted by Tralfamdorians (a group of aliens) and he begins to be able to travel fluidly throughout time. The book is comprised of flashes forward and backward in time in no apparent pattern. Billy is obviously experiencing the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which was and is a huge problem for anyone who experiences the atrocities of war. This ridiculous person that Billy becomes shows the terrible effects war can have. Other such examples of the ludicrous nature of war are seen throughout the book and with the characterization of the soldiers. Vonnegut depicts the Germans as the most sophisticated and "good" group out of all the other soldiers from different nations. The Allies are either depicted as weak and diffident(Americans) or pompous(British). Ironically, the one American soldier who is consistently seen as a good and strong man is shot by a firing squad in Dresden for taking an abandoned teapot in the middle of all the destruction. You can almost hear Vonnegut saying something along the lines of, "That's war for you!"
This shockingly blasé style is one of the ways that Vonnegut makes his readers understand the preposterous tendencies of war. Vonnegut constantly repeats certain key phrases throughout the book. The most striking one is, "so it goes". This is a phrase and idea that Billy Pilgrim learned from the Trafalmadorians. Whenever someone dies this phrase is repeated, which turns out to be quite a lot in a war story. By the end of the book the reader just wants to yell "No! People dying matters! It is not a "so it goes" kind of thing". Vonnegut's purposeful use of litotes in order to get the reader angry is very effective, while some of his other strategies are not. The constant time travel that Billy Pilgrim experiences throughout the book is very distracting. Although it is supposed to exemplify the confusion and PTSD of the soldiers, it often makes the reader feel nonplussed. Vonnegut is also very anticlimactic. This whole story is leading up to the bombing of Dresden and it really only takes up a very short portion of the book, like a side note to the real story. His purpose here is to again make the reader understand that nothing can really be said about tragedy. However he tends to lose his message along the way.
Book Review: Essential Vonnegut, still relevant today...
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't care who you are, you absolutely need to read this book. It's justly considered a classic. The thing about it is that it isn't really a "humor book" like some of Vonnegut's other, justly famous works (Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater). Parts of it are funny - I especially like the segments with the bitter Kilgore Trout, a sci-fi author reputed to be one of the worst ever - but humor isn't the focus of this book. Rather, it focuses on creativity and a solid message. Most if not all of Kurt's work is topical to some extent, but here his message comes to the fore.
Vonnegut's view of time here is fascinating. Rather than present it as a straight line, as most other authors do, he explores its more abstract natures. To him, time is not a line, but a complex network of points that anybody at any time can travel arbitrarily amongst. This is prime creativity. Some of the most memorable segments of the book involve hapless hero Billy Pilgrim becoming "unstuck in time." The first time he describes it, he takes a beautiful, "poetic-prose" approach. He floats freely through ideas, ideas that intentionally don't connect but are still beautifully written. Billy actually experiences both his birth and his death over the course of the book.
But here is the REAL reason why you need to read Slaughterhouse-Five. It's very much an anti-war book, and the central message it communicates is that there are no heroes in war. The war Vonnegut focuses on is World War II, specifically the Allies' firebombing of Dredsen, Germany, an event that killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It's clear that Vonnegut holds Nazi Germany in the utmost of contempt. But he also makes the claim that the Allies were not flawless, wonderful supermen. It's obvious that he believes in their ideals, but he also argues that they could be just as bad as their enemies. After all, countless German civilians were killed during the Dredsen firebomings, and I'm going to guess most of them had nothing to do with the Axis powers. In today's world, in today's wars, things aren't so black-and-white, and I think our President desperately needs a reminder of that. This conviction of his that America is the heroic cowboy, shooting down them no-good varmints with a gun in every holster, then mounting his horse and riding off into the sunset, is simply delusional. Don't get me wrong, I have as much if not more hatred for the terrorists our soon-to-be-ex-President (hopefully to be replaced by Barack Obama, but that's irrelevant) is so staunchly opposed to. They certainly are psychopaths, and the world would be a better place without them. But I can at least see where they're coming from. After all, hasn't America stolen their culture with its obsession with a globalist economy? There are no clear-cut heroes or villains in this war. Both sides have understandable motives, and while I admittedly side with the U.S. on this matter (though the Iraq War is at least as unnecessary as the Vietnam War, and has arguably done more damage to our country's reputation), the terrorists do have a point, I suppose. And that's why you need to read this book. Because war isn't as simple and clear-cut as certain presidents would like to believe it is. This is a fine example of preaching to the choir, since I'm a pacifist (except in extreme cases, like World War II), but I simply love this book on many, many levels. Vonnegut's masterpiece. If you wanted proof that he was an author of real literary merit and not just some weirdo - though if that's the case, you can't be my friend - this is a sure bet.
Book Review: Tour de Force of wit, imagination, and outrage
Summary: 5 Stars
Kurt Vonnegut hardly needs my praise. It could be sufficient for me to say that "Slaughterhouse Five" is a wild ride through absurdity, and full of wit, anger, and vision. But I'd like to look at three aspects of the book that, from my perspective, make it an experience that will resonate with readers, and help to explain why the book should be read by anyone who wants to understand America after World War II and through to today.
First, there's Vonnegut's imagination. I read fiction fairly regularly, but it's usually earth-bound fiction; that is, books that hew pretty closely to what could actually happen, and which tell a story in approximately chronological order. Vonnegut is coming from another place. His books depart from many novelistic conventions and veer into absurdity of time, place, events, character, etc. It makes for invigorating reading and opens up undreamed-of possibilities (and, not incidentally, it helped to show writers how far they could go and still attract a mass audience).
In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut chronicles the life and the thoughts of a man (Billy Pilgrim) who himself is unhinged from time. Pilgrim remembers events, but he also foresees events. He travels through time, and he also travels through space. In fact, Billy becomes a featured creature at a zoo in another galaxy. It's tough to tell which things happened, and which didn't -- and that's one of the ways Vonnegut keeps you on the edge.
The second point I want to make is that Vonnegut is angry. This is one of the angriest books I've ever read. It's a brutal anti-war diatribe, and it also skewers middle-class life in America, religion, and much more. Billy Pilgrim has no business being in WWII, and he is supposed to be a non-combatant, a chaplain's assistant. But he becomes a POW, and he's treated with contempt by his fellow Americans, as well as his German captors. Through his plight as a POW, he sees horrors, such as shootings, hangings, and the bombing of Dresden (never commits violence -- his worst offense is bumping into people). When he's back after the war, he just stumbles towards middle class success as an optometrist and upstanding citizen, while growing increasingly disengaged from his life. Vonnegut is angry about the emptiness of all of it -- of alleged valor, of material success, etc.
The third and final point I'd like to address is free will. It's been said that the book is about free will, and I'd agree. But I'm not sure where Vonnegut comes down on the issue: Do we have it or not? Billy Pilgrim just stumbles through life and lets things happen to him. Perhaps has free will and chooses not to use it, or perhaps his life is predestined. Meanwhile, others act on him, using their free will (apparently), yet forces act on them that are unavoidable.
In this way, Vonnegut is telling us something about the absurdity and pointlessness of life. For example, he writes about an American corporal who survived the battles and was actually a pretty good commander, but who, in a moment of weakness, stole a teapot in Dresden. He was executed by his compatriots just two days after the Americans bombed Dresden and incinerated 130,000 innocent inhabitants. Was it free will that led the corporal to steal the teapot? Did he have to be shot for his crime (a crime, by the way, that many others also committed)? Did Dresden have to be bombed in the first place? These are the kinds of things that the reader of Slaughterhouse Five will have to wrestle with long after reading this compelling book.
Book Review: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
Summary: 5 Stars
Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed in a hail of heavenly fire and brimstone. The reasoning was simple. According to the Bible, the inhabitants were vile and inexorable. So why did Dresden, a gem of Europe, perish along with its 130,000 inhabitants? Vonnegut investigates the purpose for the bombing of Dresden in a satirical allegorical manner that is unrivaled by any author since Mark Twain. Vonnegut shares Twain's genius for describing a situation simultaneously as comic and grave. In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut is able to describe the German concentration camps with the morbid clarity of Elie Wiesel's Night. However, he juxtaposes human tragedy with ripping one liners. How does he get away with such irreverence without coming off as a complete jerk? That's the genius of Vonnegut.
The book is structured in the quintessential style of Vonnegut's mid career novels. Each chapter is comprised of small, digestible vignettes ending with a joke or one-liner. This manner makes his novels easy to digest, like the sugar over the bitter pill. However, reflection over what was said is emotional on a visceral level. In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut takes on all the sacred cows: money, Christianity, nationalism, sanity and, of course, war. Each is presented to its most absurd extent.
Billy Pilgrim, the unheroic hero, involuntarily follows a convoluted story line that is a combination of recollection, psychotic episode and dream sequence. The story starts with Billy being "unstuck in time" and the story sequence loosely linear within ongoing backtracks and foresights. A perverse kind of black humor prevails in most scenes. For example, the only time Billy Pilgrim laughs during the novel is when he is being beaten by a fellow American soldier in the solitude of the Luxemburg frontier. The two had been abandoned behind enemy lines; one for his petulance and the other for his incompetence. Both outlive their abandoners. Throughout the novel, life is fragile, death is capricious and events are immutable.
In keeping a promise to a war buddy's wife, Vonnegut portrays Billy Pilgrim as a "ludicrous waif" and antithesis of John Wayne or Frank Sinatra. He is unglamorous and pitiful. Through mental illness, a plane crash, and the destruction of Dresden, he just wants to die. Billy Pilgrim is the one who wants to be left behind, but he keeps surviving when all around him die. Absurd.
For Vonnegut, war seems analogous to the namesake of the book's subtitle, The Children's Crusade, described by Vonnegut in Chapter One. Under the auspice of serving Christianity in Palestine, The Children's Crusade occurred in 1213 when several monks recruited 30,0000 children to be killed or sold into slavery in North Africa. Regarding the Children's Crusade, the presiding Pope of the time, Innocent the Third, was cited with the following remark regarding the deaths of the 30,000 children: "These children are awake while we are asleep." What is the significance of The Children's Crusade to the World War II? Most telling is Vonnegut's repeated restatement of the quatrain from the Christmas carol "Silent Night:" "The cattle are lowing, The Baby awakes. But the little Lord Jesus no crying he makes." Although not explicitly stated, one has to wonder to the extent that Vonnegut finds Christianity to be a mitigating factor in the deceit (especially self-deception) that he attributes much of the bigotry and hatred in the world that leads to war. If not guilty by fault, Christianity is guilty by negligence. Where was Jesus? No crying he makes.
Book Review: Cool Conceptually, Failure in Actuality
Summary: 3 Stars
In Kurt Vonnegut's sixth novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut finally explains his full story of Dresden. The story follows the life of Billy Pilgrim, a young man drafted into the army during World War II. The bellicose theme of Slaughterhouse-Five is an unmitigated chronicle of Billy that, while thrilling throughout, falters at the conclusion. Vonnegut's reversion into time-travel depicts the author's inability to end the story realistically. This diffidence formulates an incredibly weak conclusion, which paints an unfortunate shade on the portrait of Slaughterhouse-Five.
Slaughterhouse-Five follows Billy Pilgrim throughout World War II, from the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium to his capture. Upon receiving a pernicious shot of Morphine, Billy begins a time-trip. This atypical transcendence of time is crucial throughout the novel, as Pilgrim falls into it frequently. Pilgrim is transported to Dresden, where he works in a slaughterhouse. Allied powers bomb the city, while Billy survives in an airtight meat locker, and returns to Dresden as a decimated shadow of its former self. Soon after the bombing of Dresden, Billy is able to return to the United States, and resumes his normal life. After his return to New York, Billy is engaged to the corpulent daughter of his optometry school's founder, Valencia Merble. Subsequently, Billy suffers a mental breakdown and is committed to a mental hospital. Upon his release from the hospital, Billy falls into his own discursive version of the "American Dream." Slowly, Billy is subjected to ethereal repressed memories, such as a barbershop that psychologically sends him back to Dresden. After Billy's daughter's wedding, he is kidnapped by the Tralfamadorians, who explain to Billy that life cannot be viewed existentially. The Tralfamadorians prefer not to live lugubriously, but to relish the enjoyable moments of life. This alien race can see all of life's moments, from birth to death, yet they view death as trivial. Their jocundity affects Billy, despite his ability to see his own death. Upon his return to reality, Billy survives a plane crash. After numerous operations and recovery, Billy goes on a radio talk show, loquaciously spilling the details of his capture by the Tralfamadorians. Billy's daughter, ruminates over the methods of coping with his insanity, but ultimately institutionalizes him. As the book ends, Billy records a tape in which he discusses the imminent bombing of Chicago, as well as how he will experience his own death. This morose tone ends the story, but leaves the reader in the end confused.
Conceptually, Slaughterhouse-Five is intriguing. Billy's repression of his memories that are triggered by the slightest connection to Dresden promotes Vonnegut's belief in the unrelenting power of the mind. This theme if not nebulously explored, could have played a more influential role in the story. However, Vonnegut's foray into the extra-terrestrial seems childish and tacky. The author's ebullient transition into science-fiction from historical fiction seems slightly bipolar. The author seems to begin the story as Kurt Vonnegut, renowned writer, but ends the story as Kurt Vonnegut, comic-collecting fourteen year old boy. Despite the sardonic nature of this review, Slaughterhouse-Five is absorbing in theory, though the fatuous ending ultimately impairs the book in its entirety.