Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Slaughterhouse-Five
Book Review: A banned book list is your best reading friend :)
Summary: 5 Stars
I checked this book out of a USAF base library 20 years ago specifically because it was a perennial on local school district banned book lists when I was growing up. Otherwise, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. I ended up reading most of the rest of KV's books, which in turn, had a great deal with the shaping of my political point of view. To the school districts of Long Island N.Y who banned this book during the 70's, thanks for showing me the way to the best reading experiences I've ever had. What good is this book? Well, I'm no literary critic, but I will say to younger readers out there, this book was the first I read that married comic and tragic elements in the same instance. KV may not have invented this concept, but he certainly knows how to use it.Book Review: A basic review, for english class.
Summary: 5 Stars
It is in my belief that Slaughterhouse was a book that gets the mind active, and I enjoyed this book very much. At first the story seemed a little awkward, Vonnegut actually devoted the first chapter to telling how he thought his book to be a failure and how he could not bring himself to write a book about his experience in Dresden. He goes to a friend who cannot remember the bombing. The next chapter seemed to be a little more exciting. What isn't mentioned until about halfway through the chapter is the war, and then instantly jumps in and out of Billy Pilgrim's military experience. I see this as maybe a message that Vonnegut is trying to say. War isn't talked about much, because war is senseless and there isn't much to say about it. Billy seems to be unfetered by death when he is in the war. This is shown when his group is being shot at, and Billy is narrowly missed by a bullet and stands still as to give the shooter another chance at killing him. Billy does not see death as a thing to fear, so this means he must not think of war as anything. From Billy's point of view, all that war brings is death. After the bombing of Dresden, Billy doesn't seem to notice that he is cleaning away dead bodies, but focuses on other, more minute details. For example, Billy says that the best moment of his life was laying out on the horse cart under the sun in Dresden. As most people couldn't be able to enjoy any moment in Dresden after the bombing, seeing as how 135,000 people died, and the bodies are lying all around. This sense of not giving a damn gave Billy a comical aura. There is much, much more dark humor spread throught the book that is like this. It's the unique humor that makes this book very enjoyable, and I recommend that everyone reads this selection.Book Review: A book to be read again and again
Summary: 5 Stars
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five is increadable. It is a book that gets better every time you read it. His style of writting is fast paced and full of things you won't catch the first time. His unique narrative sets this book apart from all other novels I have read and his message is profound. A must read for everyone.Book Review: A brilliant & outrageous antiwar book
Summary: 5 Stars
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.,is a self-described "trafficker in climaxes and thrills and characterization and wonderful dialogue and suspense and confrontations." To this end, "Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance With Death," is a brilliant and outrageous antiwar book about the catastrophic World War II fire bombing of Dresden, Germany. Vonnegut delivers serious messages coated in humor. For instance, early in the narrative he states that there is "nothing intelligent to say about a massacre." And then adds, "I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee." The author then drives his convictions home by clearly explaining, "I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that."
This is a remarkable book. Vonnegut expresses his antiwar outrage with blistering humor. And by the way...Billy Pilgrim and the Tralfamadorians will leave you in stitches. So it goes.
Bert Ruiz
Book Review: A few more thoughts after reading some reviews.
Summary: 5 Stars
I decided to add this after reading a few other reviews.First, Vonnegut explicitly states that Billy did not begin time traveling because of the Tralfamadorians but that they were merely able to explain things to him. Billy still may or may not be nuts, wrecked by his experiences, but that's different. He first time travels when near death in the frozen wilderness behind enemy lines in WWII and he first begins talking about it after nearly dying in a plane crash many years later.
Second, I didn't just spoil anything because in the first few pages (after the autobiographical intro) Vonnegut lays out a straightforward biography of Billy's life in two or so pages, which can help with the rest of the story if you read it thuroughly, though I found it easy to follow anyway. As an example of how time travel is used: in one moment he's near death in a frozen German forest; in the next, he's a boy hearing music at the bottom of a swimming pool and about to pass out (and drown); and then he's a mature man visiting his mother, who is dying. All in about five paragraphs. He doesn't travel that rapidly very often but it's a good example. (There are equally good examples of funny or ironic juxtapositions like these but this happens within paragraphs of time travel being introduced to the reader so I didn't think it would spoil things much.)