I was talking Vonnegut to Sween recently (someone who seems to have digested a bit of his work) and explained that this was his favorite book in the bunch. Having only ever read Breakfast for Champions, it seemed about to time to down another of Kurt's satirically pleasing novels. Here it goes...
Sween, you're right. This book is awesome. Although lacking any major character arcs, which is typically a huge issue for me, I couldn't put this guy down. I'm pretty sure Slaughterhouse-Five was on Stan's list of the most frequently reviewed items on the blog, so maybe I can save the spiel of the plot. Well, I guess I couldn't attempt to explain the story even if I wanted to - it's entirely disjointed! Our main character, Billy Pilgrim, sort of lives in the fourth dimension and has the capability to jump around to different times in his life, without any control. So, while this book is - I think - technically classified as a war story, it's that plus everything in between (time-travel, space & aliens, family drama, ect.). Focusing on just the war for a second, the bombing of Dresden, Vonnegut recounts some amazing visual images about the war and, in particular, a bit of POW's life under the German rule in WW2. It was also fascinating that Billy, while living through some fairly traumatic moments (all at once mind you - he has lived every second of his life at once, more-or-less) remains stoic and unemotional through them all. Bullets blazing by his head, surviving a plane crash, losing his wife - the guy never breaks once. Then the story returns to his war days. The bombing of Dresden is over and the freed POWs begin scavenging through the ruins of the small German town. Billy is shown how malnourished and overworked his horses are (hooves cracked, bleeding gums) and immediately begins to break down in tears. Only time in the whole damn book we see Billy exhibit emotion, and it's over a couple of weary, beaten horses.
The most fascinating aspect of this whole novel have to be the aliens, the Tralfamadorians. Wait, I should correct myself. It's not so much them, but whole concept of them viewing the universe in the fourth dimension. Time exists as a plane of reality for them. They can see their birth and death in one singular moment - I think? Anywho, it's all very cool to try and imagine. What gets me even more are the moral ramifications of this ability. Billy (who has this power to a very limited, uncontrolled sense) knows how he will die, about WWII; he basically knows everything bad thing that will ever happen to him and those he loves before they actually happen... or maybe they've already happened...
Oh, man. I just blew my own mind.
Alright, I'll reel it in here. For all intensive purposes, if you knew the outcome of the future would - or could - you do anything to alter it for the better? By Billy and the Tralfamadorians' accepting attitude toward this indicates that Vonnegut believes in fate. We don't ever have a choice in any of our actions. It just is what it is. I think one of the aliens explains to Billy at one point that they all know how the universe will end - it will be by their own hand while developing some new spacecraft. Yet, the Tralfamadorians do nothing to stop this. They end of the fucking universe and their only response is a shoulder shrug! Whatever. I guess they just hold onto that message they tell Billy which is to just hold onto those good memories you have and forget the bad ones.
Fucking Tralfamadorians... Good book, though.
This was the first Vonnegut book I read, of nine to date, and it remains the best. There's something so surreally calming about Billy's time-jumping throughout his own tragic and adventure-filled life. He knows where he's going, he knows where he's been, and for those reasons alone he doesn't really give a shit when his plane crashes, when he gets abducted by aliens, or when he's held prisoner in a city that gets firebombed to hell and back. Because how else could you deal with that shit with the utmost serenity? Anyway, yeah - awesome book. Probably in my top five of all time, and definitely at least in my top ten. Glad you liked it, and I wish I could say the same about the squatter living in my apartment.
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