Book Review: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Over the last century plus, the affect of combat on its participants has changed in the perception of the population at large and popular culture but the view of anti-war literature seems to change depending on the wider political viewpoint. So it goes. Slaughterhouse-Five is Kurt Vonnegut anti-war magnum opus that not only focuses on the affect of war on its participants but also its crimes against noncombatants.

Billy Pilgrim survived the Battle of the Bulge becoming a prisoner of war and then surviving the firebombing of Dresden, survived a plane crash in Vermont, and was finally abducted by aliens who view time in a different way which helps Pilgrim because he has become “unstuck in time”. Vonnegut writes a layered story with shifting chronological perspective of the protagonist to write an anti-war novel without the text coming out explicitly to say it is an anti-war story. Not only is the anti-war theme present so is the affect of combat on its participants with Pilgrim’s—as a stand in for Vonnegut—PTSD from his time in the Ardennes through being a prisoner to the firebombing of Dresden, which affect everyone differently. A superficial read would say that Pilgrim’s head injury in the plane crash obviously resulted in brain trauma the created his alien delusions and exacerbated his war-related PTSD with more PTSD from the plane crash, but this shows Vonnegut’s writing mastery as there appears to be a simple explanation but doesn’t discount the fact that Pilgrim could still have been abducted by aliens. So it goes.

Slaughterhouse-Five is highly praised, but also can be divisive because of how Kurt Vonnegut wrote it. However, whether the reader turns out liking it or disliking it, this book is a must read. So it goes.

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