Slaughterhouse Five
(Kurt Vonnegut)
It?s easy to see why Slaugherhouse Five has secured a place for itself on the shelves among other literary classics. Vonnegut is a master spinner of tales. One part historic novel and one part science fiction thriller, he takes the reader on an incredible journey through space and time.
We experience the unfolding of this tale through the meek and mild eyes of one Billy Pilgrim. He, and the reader, continually wonders at the mad leaping through time and across unfathomable distances he makes along the way. The fantasy/nightmare that Billy lives, visiting, as it were, our small planet from the prison of another. He has his dreamgirl delivered to him, yet he cannot leave, at least not voluntarily. We?re both jarred and elated at the scenes that Vonnegut put poor Billy through, all the while someone, we?re told, in the universe is getting closer to pushing the button which will end existence as we know it. A real mind-bender.
The novel begins with a no-holds-barred glimpse of Billy and his company being captured by the Nazis and imprisoned in Slaugherhouse Five in what?s left of bombed-out Desden toward the end of World war II. It would seem, based on the first few chapters, to be a war story. And it is, of sorts. It?s a political commentary as well. Vonnegut understands, and manages to instill in the reader, a sense of preordained fate. War may be inevitable, but how we deal with it is not. We, like Billy, have choices. The novel provides an excellent insight into why we do the things we do, make the choices we make.
Kurt Vonnegut remains one of the most creative and interesting authors of our times. If you have not read anything by this talented biographer and novelist, there is no better book to cut your teeth on than this one.
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