Slaugherhouse-Five Book Review

The book begins in first person in the perspective of Kurt Vonnegut. He is visiting an old friend from the war, Bernard V. O’Hare, and they are reminiscing about the war. Vonnegut mentions that he is trying to write a book about the bombing of Dresden. O’Hare’s wife says that he should name is book the Children’s Crusade, because she believes that the war is talked about like it was a great gallant fight fought by heroes, but it was actually the gory slaughter of children sent to war. That dialogue sets the stage for the book in discussing the meaningless of war, and, the meaningless of life itself. Vonnegut goes on to think to himself about the fluidity and intricacies of time, a theme carried throughout the rest of the book. He then introduces Billy Pilgrim, a boring man from a boring town with a boring life who becomes unstuck in time. 

The story of Billy Pilgrim is not a linear one. It begins with Billy old and senile in his death bed, and then he awakens on his wedding day, and then to the war, and then to his birth and then to his death. Billy’s story is centered around two different parts of his life; the bombing of Dresden, and Billy’s life on the planet Tralfamadore. Through the repetition of phrases, random anecdotes, science fiction, and history, Kurt Vonnegut uses the life of Billy Pilgrim to convey his own confusions about the meaning and the meaninglessness of existence and what it means to be a human being.

Billy Pilgrim floats through time with no start, no end, and no purpose. Aimless and lost, Billy does not feel like he has a solid, down-to-earth impact anywhere, and doubts the significance of his own existence. I related to Billy’s uncertainty. I, too, have questioned who I am, and what the meaning of my existence is. Do I matter? I am significant? Will I have an impact? The philosophy Billy learns on Tralfamdore teaches him that no one is ever truly dead, as they are alive in every other moment at the same time. He learns every moment happened, is happening, and always will happen the same exact way, as it is “structured that way”. Billy raises more relatable life questions I too brood over sometimes. What happens when you die? Do I have a predetermined destiny? If I am simply a compilation of memories than who will I be when no one is left to remember?

Various other characters are introduced in different moments of Billy’s life. There are his wife and his children and his war friends and fellow war prisoners. There is Eliot Rosewater, another man in a mental hospital with Billy. Montana Wildhack, the hollywood actress in the Tralfamadorian zoo exhibit with Billy. And of course, Kilgore Trout, a science fiction novelist no one has ever heard of. My favorite character, or set of characters, where the English soldiers living in the heart of a Russian war camp. They had befriended the Russian guards and recieved extra food and provisions. The Englishmen created a happy and structured life in the center of chaos and captivity and destruction. That contrast, and the recognition of the human ability to create lemonade out of any lemons, was strikingly beautiful.

Slaughterhouse-Five is hauntingly well written and is a book that, as Life Magazine remarked, “a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears, a tale told in a slaughterhouse.” Although the story progression in the book is not linear, Kurt Vonnegut is able to create a sense of continuity through his writing styles and his repetition. Vonnegut takes advantage of the simplicity of the human brain and how easily we can make connections. For example, in the beginning of the book, Vonnegut explains that at the end of a massacre, all you can hear are the birds, and they sound like “poo-tee-weet”. The last line in the book is “poo-tee-weet”, telling the reader that the book was a story of a massacre and a a story of death. The reader knows, even though Vonnegut did not tell. Kurt Vonnegut is a master of words and a master of the mind, and his book is a masterpiece.

I would recommend this book for anyone who likes be intellectually engaged while reading. Anyone who likes science fiction, World War II, classic literature, or anyone who is looking for a short and satisfying read. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I think you could too.