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Loading... Slaughterhouse-Fiveby Kurt Vonnegut
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I was pointed to this book as a science fiction novel dealing with time travel. You can describe it as such, but I would classify it as general fiction, about a man dealing with the trauma of the Dresden bombings as POW and his life afterwards. The writing might confuse some readers, I didn't have any problems. A very impressive book. (  ) divinenanny | Nov 17, 2009 |  This is a bizarre story of time travel featuring Billy Pilgrim a German American who serves in the Second world war and is abducted by aliens. This is in part autobiographical as Vonnegut a POW witnessed the fire bombing of Dresden and many of the descriptions are directly from his experiences. I enjoyed the book and parts are very funny if not weird when it shifts to his abduction to Planet Tralfamadore but highlights the effects that war experiences have on memory and a persons state of mind. It works on several levels with great writing and interesting subject matter. This was my introduction to Vonnegut and I will be interested to read more of his work. (Recommendations anyone ??) ( ) jeniwren | Nov 14, 2009 | I haven't been able to stop thinking about this book since I finished it lastnight. Yes, it's got a quirky plot and, yes, it takes a certain type of person to understand and agree with what the author is really saying underneath it all, but that's Kurt Vonnegut for you. I loved it and plan to read it again. ( ) wandereux | Nov 4, 2009 | An OK novel but very much overrated also the bombing of Dresden is pretty stale. (  ) Kuiperdolin | Nov 2, 2009 | Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time. In short, events are not told chronologically. Things generally revolve around the bombing of Dresden during World War II, with side trips to Billy's childhood, hospitalization, and abduction by aliens. This is a novel often assigned in school, and I almost wish that is where I had read it, because if there was a point to this story I sure missed it. (  ) melydia | Oct 28, 2009 | 
 It is a novel about war and what men do to each other in the name of holy causes. Which is not to say it is anywhere near "The Naked and the Dead" or "From Here to Eternity." Vonnegut fights his wars with feathers rather than with jackhammers. "Slaughterhouse-Five" is funny, satirical, compelling, outrageous, fanciful, mordant, fecund and at the bottom-line, simply stoned-out-of-its-mind. An agonizing, funny, profoundly rueful attempt by Vonnegut to handle in fable form his own memories of the strategically unnecessary Allied air raid on Dresden... few modern writers have borne witness against inhumanity with more humanity or humor. "Slaughterhouse-Five" is an extraordinary success. It is a book we need to read, and to reread. It has the same virtues as Vonnegut's best previous work. It is funny, compassionate and wise. The humor in Vonnegut's fiction is what enables us to contemplate the horror that he finds in contemporary existence. It does not disguise the awful things perceived; it merely strengthens and comforts us to the point where such perception is bearable. It sounds crazy. It sounds like a fantastic last-ditch effort to make sense of a lunatic universe. But there is so much more to this book. It is very tough and very funny; it is sad and delightful; and it works. But is also very Vonnegut, which mean you'll either love it, or push it back in the science-fiction corner.
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| Book description |
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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.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:02 -0400)
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