Slaughterhouse-Five (1969)

What a unique and engaging reading experience. Took me years to finally sit down and read this classic and it did not disappoint. The horrors of war and the effect one war had on one Billy Pilgrim. The lifelong trauma that can befall soldiers is the theme here, flavored with pathos and cynicism. ( )

The star ratings are defined deceptively, or at least in a way that causes difficulty in rating a work like this. Three stars says I "liked" it. I did not. This book seems to go out of its way to be vulgar and to keep the reader from caring about the characters except in a philosophical sense. I would not have finished reading this if it weren't on my list of classics to be conquered. There's also, for me, the brain-block caused by black humor. It's not something I find funny. At all. (I would not know this book was supposed to be funny if I hadn't read reviews calling it so. Acerbic wit? Yes. Actually funny? If you say so.)

So I originally rated it two stars, because my personal reading tastes find it completely unlikable.

However ... the books to which I give two stars usually have a lot of craft problems, or make me crazy with their unrealistic psychology and/or exaggeratedly insufferable characters. That doesn't describe this book. Slaughterhouse-Five is really smart. And devastating as the author intended. And challenging. Will I read it (or Vonnegut) again? Heck no. Did I enjoy it? Absolutely not. Did it broaden my reading experience in a way that was worth my time? Yes, it did. ( )

Vonnegut is funny and bitter and honest, as he should be when writing about that most ridiculous of topics: war. This was an incredibly fast read, it seems like no sooner had I picked it up for my book club it was finished.

It seems like my all of book-club books, despite the long discussions I have about them with my friends, seem to get short-shafted in the review department. So it goes. ( )

Literally a trip, as in hallucinogenic. Very strange string of words. Sad, depressing, a bit sarcastic. The mastery is it all fits the horror of the subject matter. He certainly made his persuasive points. For me the sarcastic flippancy seemed overkill. So it goes. ( )

I must have started this book a while back, because the first chapter was really familiar. Well. Vonnegut is certainly not a conventional author, and this is not a conventional book about war; not that I've read that many. The detached narrative really shows a unique perspective of war and it's horrors that is not easily forgotten. ( )