Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Billy Pilgrim is the son of an American barber. He serves as a chaplain’s assistant in World War II, is captured by the Germans, and he survives the largest massacre in European history the fire bombing of Dresden. After the war Billy makes a great deal of money as an optometrist, and on his wedding night he is kidnapped by a flying saucer from the planet Tralfamadore. So begins a modern classic by a master storyteller.
by Damla
“I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren’t going to want to go on living.”
Slaughterhouse Five is a strange, bleak, sharp, and witty piece of work that combines honesty, innocence, tragedy, and bitter comedy effortlessly. Perhaps, the closest comparison I can make to it is Catch-22, because they are both heavily loaded with a stark humor while driving home their strong anti-war sentiments. The book’s actual extended title is Slaughterhouse-Five, or, the Children’s Crusade, a Duty-Dance with Death, so there is no mistaking that Vonnegut is expressing his post-war trauma in a way truly unique to him. Except, this modern classic is not exactly historical fiction, for the plot takes on a very unexpected fantastical and science-fiction air early on, and it was definitely not what I thought I would encounter in a war novel.
Deceptively simple at the first glance, the story itself actually delves much deeper than expected as time unravels, and our protagonist faces the strange events in his life with a deadpan stoicism. An endearing yet detached demeanor of honesty, innocence, and incompetent luck permeates the adventure throughout. And punctuating every morbid fact and depressing news of death with a “so it goes” was just the touch of perfection for me.
A very enjoyable book that somehow manages to simultaneously depress, horrify, and make its readers laugh.
