| Product: |
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut |
| Date: |
08/07/01 (265 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: good read, great moral lessons
Disadvantages: hard to follow, very emotional
For those who believe in destiny time is but a bug stuck in amber; just a single moment that will be that moment and has been that moment forever. Time is but one more demension in our world filled with space. Like space, one is capable of navigating and moving about within time to different blobs of amber.
In this way, if a member of a family were pass away they would not be dead. Instead they are simply stuck in another distinct moment of time. They have always died and will always die in the exact same moment. Most people retain only the capability to focus on the single moment they find themselves within. Others, however, find themselves traveling between moments.
This is the concept of time used in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut's main character becomes "unstuck" in time and lives his life jumping from discrete moment to discrete moment. Life for Billy Pilgram is chronilogical, but rather a jumble of discrete moments tied together by his presence.
This concept is first introduced to Billy by a race of aliens known as the talfamadorians. To these aliens time is what one makes of it. If humans concentrated only on the good moments of time, it would seem as if the bad moments did not exist. For instance, the Talfamadorians had seen the ending of the universe and knew that moment could not be changed. It had/will have happened. Life for them was better if they chose not to look at that moment in time.
Though this book is packed with many different moral lessons it is infact an anti-war novel. Slaughterhouse Five is meant to concentrate on the fire bombing of Dresden in World War II. Vonnegut uses this novel as a way to show the world how simple-minded so war can be.
The original title of the novel was meant to be The Children's Crusade to appease a fellow vetren and friend's wife. This title was based on the idea that the soliders who fought during this part of t
he war were children who had only recently left their parents.
Many parts of this novel are autobiographical. Vonnegut, himself, was in Dresden during the fire bombing. He was one of the prisioners Billy Pilgram is held with. There are even parts within the novel where Vonnegut refers to himself.
Though parts of the novel are quite humorous, the reader is feels guilty while laughing. It is a sad novel that will leave the reader wondering why they didn't cry. It is filled with compassion hidden in the satire.
Above all else, Slaughterhouse Five was a very interesting read. It is definately not an easy book to read. The reader may fall asleep to Billy's wedding night only to wake up and find themselves following Billy out the door of a prision camp hospital. The reader is left to for the life of Billy Pilgram from the jumbled mess of information. Though Vonnegut uses lannguage suitable for a younger audience, I would not recommend this novel to anyone under sixteen years old.
I really enjoyed reading the novel. But don't read it if you are not willing to lose part of yourself in the main character. You will miss the point of the novel if you are not moved by Billy's actions and innocence.
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