Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse Five

So sorry for the absence of reviews. I caught up with what I had finished, and I've started back for a new school year, so things are super busy, but I finally finished Slaughterhouse-Five.

This once again as a book club read. The BBC has a list of 100 books that they bet most people haven't read, and this is one of them. I had never read this book, so this was my first time through.

Billy Pilgrim is unstuck in time. As the story progresses, it is quickly established that the story is nonlinear. At times, Billy is in Germany as a prisoner of war. At other times, he's in his house in 1950, talking with his daughters. At other times, he is on an alien planet called Tralfamadore. These memories all lead up to the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, a real event that Kurt Vonnegut himself lived through.

This book is very complicated. It is clear that the nonlinear structure of the novel is very intentional. The order of the experiences we read is exactly how Vonnegut meant them. If you don't walk into this book without understanding that Vonnegut will insert himself into this story (as if he knew Billy Pilgrim). That definitely confused me until I did some research.

Another frame that's important to have is this book deals heavily with the effects of PTSD. Realizing that this was how Billy's brain dealt with the horrors that he saw both in the war and in Dresden made the book make a lot more sense.

In all, this was a hard book to read. It's extremely complex, and while interesting, I didn't love it.

I rate it ⭐⭐⭐

Comments

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