This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.
Billy Pilgrim returns home from the Second World War only to be kidnapped by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, who teach him that time is an eternal present.
andomck: Both books, besides having science fiction/magical realism elements, discuss bloody episodes of WWII from the point of view of everyday people.
Anonymous user: Elliot Rosewater, the main character of God Bless You, Mr Rosewater, appears in Slaughterhouse-Five. Also, they both feature books from fictional author Kilgore Trout.
I had to rely on commentaries to understand what the time travel means, and most say that it is the means of how Billy deals with PTSD. I think that makes sense. You get so traumatised by war, you have to deal with it through extraordinary ways. ( )
I finished reading Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. I have been exploring Vonnegut books for a couple years, but avoided this one due to the war theme. I should have read it sooner. I give it 5 silver shoes out of 5 silver shoes. ( )
This was one of those books that I thought I might've read way back when, but I didn't take credit for it until making sure. So, now I'm pretty sure I hadn't read this book before! I have to say it was a bit underwhelming; I thought it was a bit too precious to start with, but I did warm up to it by the end. After reading it, I read a bit more about Kurt Vonnegut and saw that there was at least some autobiographical material in the book (Vonnegut was taken prisoner in WWII, held captive in a slaughterhouse in Dresden, and survived the firebombing of Dresden in an underground meat locker), which was very interesting. I do understand its importance as an anti-war novel, I just thought the first half of it was kind of silly. ( )
The cattle are lowing, The Baby awakes. But the little Lord Jesus No crying He makes.
Dedication
For Mary O'Hare and Gerhard Müller
First words
All this happened, more or less.
Quotations
Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.
There was a a soft drink bottle on the windowsill. Its label boasted that it contained no nourishment whatsoever.
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.
You know — we've had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by aging men like ourselves. We had forgotten that wars were fought by babies. When I saw those freshly shaved faces, it was a shock. "'My God, my God — ' I said to myself, 'It's the Children's Crusade.'"
All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.
'We don't ever have to talk about it,' said Billy. 'I just want you to know: I was there.'
How nice--to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.
The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought.
Billy covered his head with his blanket again. He always covered his head when his mother came to see him in the mental ward - always got much sicker until she went away. It wasn't that she was ugly, or had bad breath or a bad personality. She was a perfectly nice, standard-issue, brown-haired, white woman with a high-school education. She upset Billy simply by being his mother. She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she had gone to so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn't really like life at all.
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.
There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of the many marvelous moments seen all at once time.
The master of ceremonies asked people to say what they thought the function of the novel might be in modern society, and one critic said, "To provide touches of color in rooms with all-white walls." Another one said, "To describe blow-jobs artistically."
Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer. So it goes.
There was a big number over the door of the building. The number was five. Before the Americans could go inside, their only English-speaking guard told them to memorize their simple address, in case they got lost in the big city. Their address was this: 'Schlachthof-funf'. Schlachthof meant Slaughterhouse. Funf was good old five.
The most important thing i learned on Tralfamadore that when a person dies he [sic] only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly of [eople to cry at his funeral.
The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty
Billy Pilgrim returns home from the Second World War only to be kidnapped by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, who teach him that time is an eternal present.
▾Library descriptions
No library descriptions found.
▾LibraryThing members' description
Book description
[R.L. 6.0] From the World War Two firebombing of Dresden to the distant planet called Tralfamadore, the reader follows Billy Pilgrim in his attempt to understand the natures of time and existence.