Slaughterhouse-Five
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Repetition and a sleep addled brain
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So it goes. And goes. And goes. (Yawn.)No aspersions cast on what the man went through in the Dresden Blitz, respect to all survivors. But this and his other "novels" is overrated cack. I wonder what he was smoking between chapters?
Philip wrote: "So it goes. And goes. And goes. (Yawn.)No aspersions cast on what the man went through in the Dresden Blitz, respect to all survivors. But this and his other "novels" is overrated cack. I wonder ..."
Obviously, you don't have to like it. Not everyone will. I get that. But I found it wildly inventive, deeply personal, and very moving.
Philip wrote: "So it goes. And goes. And goes. (Yawn.)"I actually loved the "so it goes".
Ken wrote: "I found it wildly inventive, deeply personal, and very moving."
I agree, and I haven't even finished the book yet! I thought I wouldn't enjoy Cat’s Cradle but after reading this, I think I'm ready for it.
Philip wrote: "So it goes. And goes. And goes. (Yawn.)No aspersions cast on what the man went through in the Dresden Blitz, respect to all survivors. But this and his other "novels" is overrated cack. I wonder ..."
To each their own. After reading most of Vonnegut's novels in university, I found that his style and themes do repeat quite a bit, but they were good themes, with great messages, and I still sought out the rest of his books eventually.
Being somewhat young at the time, I honestly think reading them let me know it was okay to be a good person.
Vonnegut just ain't for boring people...
MickoThe value of Vonnegut's work is the subject here, not anyone's personality. Please keep offensive, personal aspersions to yourself.
FatinAs I said in my first post, Respect.
"Slaughterhouse-Five" contains some vivid recollections of the nightmare private Vonnegut experienced on his tour of duty in wartime France, his internment by the Nazis and subsequent liberation. The scenes in Dresden recounted are of significant historical importance. However, these are interspersed with bits of a sci-fi story which are intended to turn the whole into a work of fiction. There is a vision there; sadly, it is so poorly wrought the effect of the first-hand material is almost ruined. Lack of craft is the badge of a Vonnegut book.
When I read "Cat's Cradle" for a few hours I became so depressed and despondent I wanted to turn my back on the whole literary world. Unedited work of this kind has be created by genius and I just don't think Vonnegut was anything of the sort. Luckily for me we have the antidote: the true genius and craft of Philip K. Dick. Vonnegut spent years promising/threatening to write "Slaughterhouse-Five", and eventually tossed the book off in a matter of weeks. As I said above, it shows.
Contrast, if you will, the triumph of Kerouac's "On The Road". True, he typed the book out in a ten-day Benzedrine-fuelled fury. But it was his umpteenth draft and stemmed from of ten years' graft after the failure of the dismal "The Town And The City". In "On The Road" you feel like you're being told a story, not being sold a line.
Even Burroughs put the hours in and "The Naked Lunch", in its own way, is every bit as carefully crafted a piece as "Soldier's Pay" or "The Great Gatsby".
I think what's most remarkable about Vonnegut is that so many people dig him. I mean, for millions, he's up there with Scott and Hemingway! What's going on? It's easy to have ideas, and not much of a challenge to write them down. But here's what the truly great writers do: they turn ideas into fiction. With Vonnegut, you don't get past the popping of light-bulbs... and corks.
?? What's with the 'you'? Speak for yourself please
RobertWell, "you" can be "you" (the person I'm speaking to), or "you" (the people I'm speaking to), or even "you" (everybody on the dance floor). Speaking for oneself, old chap.
Philip wrote: "FatinAs I said in my first post, Respect.
"Slaughterhouse-Five" contains some vivid recollections of the nightmare private Vonnegut experienced on his tour of duty in wartime France, his internm..."
Well, I can't really get back to you on all that until I've finished the whole book, but I can say that so far, I've loved it. There are certain parts of it that really touch me.
There's the part right in the start where Mary's talking about how children fight wars, not men.
There's "...the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee.
^That quote really hits close to home, because I'm a Pakistani and a Muslim, and I see death and bombings all around me, just a few miles from my house, and sometimes it's just between muslim sects, and there are people who're happy about this. Their hate is terrifying.
There's the part where his mother goes "How did I get so old?"
There's the part where it goes Billy didn't really like life at all.
And then there's the epitaph that reads: Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.
This is my first war book, and I am young, so maybe that has to do with my love for it, maybe not. I'm not a fan of books that discuss wars, perhaps it was the fiction mixing into this that let me enjoy it and get through it and let it get through to me.
I will be starting On The Road after this. I'm just waiting for my replacement copy because the one I have is slightly torn.
Philip wrote: "I think what's most remarkable about Vonnegut is that so many people dig him."I think what's most remarkable is that you spend so much energy slagging off an author you don't even like. Why? Did he screw your sister or what?
Furthermore, if you truly speak 'for yourself' you should say "I feel like I'm being told a story" and "I don't get past the popping of light-bulbs", since you're not speaking for me. Hiding behind some imaginary 'you' is weak.
Robbert wrote: "Did he screw your sister or what?"No, I've got nothing personal against the man. Heck, he made a pot of money out of writing and that seems to me to be a rather neat trick. But he shot to fame on the back of a novel which contains accounts of his wartime experiences. At the time of US atrocities in Vietnam, his words touched nerves. There's no denying the significance of the WWII material, and I have twice acknowledged it. However, his novel is flawed, as I have tried to show. But fame allowed him to go on propagating the myth that he was a great writer when he wasn't all that. There are thousands on creative writing courses who have ten times his talent.
Part of literary debate involves exploding myths such as the one surrounding this particular charlatan. I'm not the only critic of Vonnegut. The Goodreads pages on "Slaughterhouse-Five" contain many more negative arguments than mine.
I think I've already covered the ground on the universal use of the pronoun "you". But perhaps I should spell it out? The use of "one" is not just archaic, quaint and comical, even Queen Elizabeth has cut it out of her public speeches. Meanwhile commoners have been using "you" for centuries. It's in all the larger dictionaries, if you're in doubt.
FatinYou're right, the book has got lots of moving bits in it. Have you come across any of Spike Milligan's wartime tomes? They're funny and sad by turns.
But as a novel "Slaughterhouse-Five" is a leaking bucket.
A torn jacket shouldn't stop you reading "On The Road"! I mean, cut to the chase, or what?
Okay, as I've said, not everyone will like this novel. It's experimental in structure. But calling the author a "charlatan" is ridiculous. He wrote a novel, a work of fiction. He expressed himself in a different way than you appreciate. That doesn't make him a charlatan. I didn't much care for "American Gods" but that doesn't make Neil Gaiman a charlatan. Jeez.
So, rather than feeding the troll that showed up on a discussion and offered nothing useful, I'd like to actually discuss the OP's original point of starting this thread.There are more repetitions that Vonnegut weaves through the story to look out for. Since you're not finished, I won't go into too in-depth of a discussion, but take careful note of *everything* that happens while Billy Pilgrim is on Tralfamadore. All of it connects to something else, somewhere in the novel, and the reason for it ends up being pivotal to interpretation of the novel (especially if you settle in to argue with people about whether the novel promotes blind complacency or not).
Fatin wrote: "I started this book a month ago, and something went wrong and I could not read it, I just came back to it and fell in love with it!Unfortunately, this meant I kept reading even when I was stressin..."
Yes, there should be more discussions on this classic. Did you see the movie?
Billy is in the present, but he cannot get the past out of his mind and the present, past and finally a future pass through his mind and this is reflected in the stream of thoughts writing.
Ken wrote: "Okay, as I've said, not everyone will like this novel. It's experimental in structure. But calling the author a "charlatan" is ridiculous. He wrote a novel, a work of fiction. He expressed himself ..."Yeah, I concur. I don't like romance novels, but I won't slander the genre or call every romance author -- for an equally ridiculous term -- I dunno, 'a troubadour' simply because their work is not to my own taste.
Philip wrote: "Part of literary debate involves exploding myths such as the one surrounding this particular charlatan."I thought that was kinda contradictory too, saying one's got nothing against the man and then calling him a 'charlatan'.
Part of any debate is realising your own opinion is just that, your own opinion. A subjective thing. Not pretending you're speaking some universal truth by saying 'you' where it should say 'I'. Or hiding behind other Vonnegut-critics. As if that would make one's point any more valid.
I think the only 'charlatan' is this troll who calls himself an 'author'
KenYes, it is ridiculous, but true: literature is the charlatan's paradise. Take DBC Pierre, who won the Booker with “Vernon God Little” in 2003 – a very low ebb for English letters. Actually, in his case, I believe the judges awarded him the prize because of his sheer audacity; but at least Pierre owned up to being a con-man. Wily old Vonnegut played up and played the game to the bitter end.
Serious critics tend to overlook him – I guess because they don't need each other. His books sell well enough, and his fans don't take too kindly to anyone who maligns their great hero. Read into that what you will.
Demetrius
I saw the movie on TV about ten years ago. It was pretty good. First rate acting from Michael Sacks and Eugene Roche. Big improvement on the book.
Mike
Troll? Nothing useful?
So a troll is a person whose useless comments are something you don't like (Stewie Griffin voice: I do beg your pardon, dear boy, “one” doesn't like).
Robbert
Troll? Sticks and stones, mate. I'm not hiding in a cave; or skulking behind others who, just like me, dare to say what they think. We're on a forum for debate, not a fan club. Just don't be fooled by the pseudo subversiveness of the Official Saab dealer. Who did a fine line in warplanes, too (till they went bust!)
No, one (HA!) has got nothing against Vonnegut personally. One means truly he didn't rape one's sister! (Should he have tried!) Anyhow, he's long dead. Smoked himself potty. Good luck to the heirs of his estate. Enjoy the money! It's just that one bought two of his books and felt frightfully ripped off when one sat down to read them. Spoilt one's tea and biscuits they did. One believes he is not simply overrated; he's like JK Rowling, so hyped by the publishers and slavishly adored by fans it's difficult for one to be objective. Nighty-nighty!
*Sigh* Yes, I do consider you a troll because the topic of discussion here is not whether or not you liked the book, it's about the repetition of images throughout the book. So your claim that the book is "overrated" offers nothing to the discussion.Furthermore, you have offered no evidence to support your claims aside from you, personally, found the book to be not enjoyable. You came close in your second post, but spent more time expounding on "Cat's Cradle" than you did about Slaughterhouse, which is again beside the point. Then you've gone on to compare the work to "On the Road", which seems a bit like comparing apples to oranges. You say that the writing is bad, but you offer no example of poor writing or what about it can be construed as objectively inferior to other writers. You certainly list a lot of other writers, but anyone who took an intro lit course at university could do that.
As such, you're just presenting a personal opinion and trying to pass it off as a learned response in a discussion that it has no place in.
Who said anything about raping? You're not just a troll, you're a sick man.
Guys, guys. Okay, now I want to stick the topic and forget all this mess about whether or not the book is liked. Demetrius, I was not aware there was a movie! How does it compare to the book?
Mike, I'm going to take another day or so to finish the book, but I still haven't been able to figure out the blue and ivory thing. To be honest, I haven't given it much thought because I switched to another book in the middle. But what's your opinion of it?
It's been a few years since I read the book last, and while I remember that blue and ivory came up several times, I barely remember what they were in reference too. Once, IIRC, was about someone's foot in the train car. Could you toss some page numbers at me (or some chapters, what have you) of where it crops up, and I'll be able to easily jog my memory. Otherwise, I'll have to wade through the whole book again, which would take a little time.
Mike wrote: "Could you toss some page numbers at me (or some chapters, what have you) of where it crops up, and I'll be able to easily jog my memory. Otherwise, I'll have to wade through the whole book again, which would take a little time."Well, I'm not sure if you have the same edition as mine, so I went chapter wise.
Chapter 3:
There was so much to see-dragon's teeth, killing machine, corpses with feet that were blue and ivory
Chapter 4:
Billy Pilgrim padded downstairs on his blue and ivory feet
Out he went , his blue and ivory feet crushing the wet salad of the lawn.
Billy Pilgrim was lying at an angle on the corner-brace , self-crucified, holding himself with a blue and ivory claw hooked over the ventilator.
Chapter six:
They saw the dead hobo, whose feel were blue and ivory
Thank you for digging those up. At another cursory glance through those chapters / the area around them, I think we might be able to discern something along the lines of:This blue and ivory stands in for suffering. When post-war Billy keeps seeing his feet as blue-ivory, it keeps going back to what he'd seen in the war, between the horrors in the boxcar and the dead people. So it shows that Billy is fixated on those horrors and still suffering from them. The colors that he observes externally become part of him, much like the effect of what he saw has become internalized.
Personally I'm a great fan of Vonnegut, but then I'm also a great fan of Twain. One of the things that draws me to him is he is not a formulaic writer. This can be disconcerting for those readers that need a paved road. Vonnegut does like to rework his images and themes and the same ones do pop up in a lot of his work, particular the so-called science fiction. There was another film production related to Slaughterhouse 5 done for public television, From Time to Timbukto. Copies of this seem to be unavailable. I recall it made great use of Vonnegut's themes all revolving around that chronosynclastic infundibulum.
Many critics thought Huck Finn was trash when it first appeared.
Scott: "disconcerting for those readers that need a paved road"What this seems to imply is that some readers get lost or bogged down reading Vonnegut. I think that would be a fair comment. Others find Samuel Beckett's novels repetitive and hard to follow. They're not as easy to read as Mark Twain's, for example, whereas they can be just as funny and true to life.
Although I risk going completely off topic, I would like to say that I greatly enjoy the use of "One" in writing, archaic though it may be. Not that there is anything wrong with "you" mind you, but there is just something so elegant about English when it is not the overly simplified common prose of modernity.That being said, one should comment in whatever means one deems fit, so "you" away good sir.
Personally, I greatly enjoyed the novel; however, I never have considered myself to be a great literary critic... I also greatly enjoy Star Wars books... Oh well.
Sam wrote: "Although I risk going completely off topic, I would like to say that I greatly enjoy the use of "One" in writing, archaic though it may be. Not that there is anything wrong with "you" mind you, but..."ha ha, this made me think of the big bang theory's quote from sheldon: "incidentally, one can get beaten up in school simply by referring to oneself as one."
Vonnegut's work is not difficult to read. Getting his joke is the rick.
I've finished the novel! I thought it was brilliant. There was this idea, that maybe everything after the war did not happen after all. That not only did he dream up tralfamadore, but also his whole life, and he actually died in the war.
Tom: Hay Rick, Dresden was no gas.
Right, they fire bombed it. On top of that it was an open city. Billy Pilgrim was a gentle man and look what happened to him. The humor abounds!
Fatin wrote: "I've finished the novel! I thought it was brilliant. There was this idea, that maybe everything after the war did not happen after all. That not only did he dream up tralfamadore, but also his who..."
Fatin, that's one of the book's layers. The adventures on Trafalmadore are related as if they really happened, but it's unclear whether they did or were instead a figment of Billy's mind in trying to make sense of senseless acts.
I think everything in the book did happen to Billy. Vonnegut seldom used dreams in his work. By being unstuck in time Billy could move between all the events of his life, including his death. Therefore all events had equal importance. And nothing was final.
Tom, I agree and I prefer that interpretation. Being a zoo specimen on Tralfamadore with a Hollywood starlet for a companion sure beats a hallucination.
The battle of the Bulge was a SNAFU. A nucleus of the surrounded Americans had the nous and the the guts to call the Germans' bluff and cry “Nuts!” Stragglers, however, did not. Those were mainly inexperienced, ill-led and ill-equipped troops and were easily rounded up as POWs. Initially a propaganda coup for their captors, they soon became an embarrassment and drain on resources. So the Nazis, in their despicable way, put them to work. Shipping them East to Dresden was an attempt to create a “Human Shield” à la Saddam Hussein. They suffered in the RAF/USAAF fire-bombing of the city, the ferocity of which was every bit as devastating as the nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The American writer Kurt Vonnegut, who was present in Dresden as a POW and who survived, wrote moving and historically important accounts of his experiences as a general infantryman both before, during and after his capture. However, for reasons open to speculation, Vonnegut interpolated his WWII memories within a science fiction novel, so that they appear to be the flash-backs of a man who has been kidnapped by aliens. For many people this works very well; and it has to be admitted by those, like me, who do not enjoy reading the book as whole: the success of “Slaughterhouse-Five” has brought the Battle of the Bulge and the Dresden fire-bombing to the attention of the public in a novel way.Regarding the Nazi declaration of Dresden as an “Open City”. Again this was part of the cynical and brutal way Hitler manipulated the collapse of his totalitarian regime. Yes, the population of pretty Dresden, the pottery centre of Brandenburg-Prussia, had been vastly swollen by refugees fleeing the Russians. That was the reason why the casualty figures were so high. But who were those refugees? Innocent civilians? Well, the tens of thousands of youngsters amongst them certainly were. Their elders, however, consisted mainly of German colonists who, on Nazi authority, had stolen the houses, farms, shops and businesses – the lives, if you like – of the indigenous people of Poland, Belarus and the Ukraine. They were fleeing the vengeance of the Red Army. Hitler declared Dresden an “Open City” as a provocation to the United Nations and, I'm afraid, to our very great shame, it was razed by fire. Revenge for the Holocaust and for the suffering of the Russian people certainly played a part in the decision to go ahead with the bombing, as did pique over the Battle of the Bulge. The message was as brutal as Hitler's defiance, Germany would not emerge from the war with its population and national treasures unscathed. This much is history.
I read the novel Slaughterhouse-Five with two kinds of dismay: one for the suffering depicted in his first-hand accounts, and another for the use to which Vonnegut put this powerful material.
Can I ask a question here? What does the science fiction framework do for anyone “trying to make sense of senseless acts”?
Only parts of the novel use the framework of science fiction. Vonnegut's was to use sci-fi and dark humor to make a point.
Interesting discussion going on here.PHILIP - The science fiction framework initially bothered me as well but on further thought I realized that it may contribute notably to the novel's purpose as a criticism of the moral, physical, and personal destructiveness of war in general, the firebombing of Dresden in particular, and the inability of our society to avoid such senseless slaughter.
Billy's experiences and conversations with the Tralfamadorians highlight some of mankind's destructive or delusional capacities:
1) The lethal war environment is not unlike the cyanide that surrounds the dome on Tralfamadore. In its post-bombed state Dresden is described as being "like the surface of the moon." Practically uninhabitable.
2) The belief that we can exercise free will and control our fates appears ridiculous from a Tralfamadorian perspective for they can see time like we can see a mountain range in the distance. Only an alien could have this perspective...and point out to Billy that of all creatures in the universe, only humanity has this delusional belief.
3) The American prudish obsession with sex (porn everywhere but don't actually ever talk about sex as a natural and normal part of life) is satirized in Billy's extra-planetary relationship with Montana Wildhack. Note how happy this traumatized, desensitized and apathetic man becomes when he escapes Earth's harsh realities and societal expectations.
3) Once time can be observed both forwards and backwards, Vonnegut is able to show us, through Billy's science-fiction-like ability, the absurd immorality and waste of war in one of the novel's most moving passages...that of the war in reverse, when bombs that would destroy are magically lifted back up into airplanes and dismantled by munitions factory workers. The raw materials used to make the bombs are then carefully hidden in the ground.
5) Whether his trip to Tralfamadore is hallucinated or real, Billy Pilgrim, a passive pacifist, jumps at the chance to escape the grim reality of the world around him. He's been remarkably lucky to survive both the Dresden bombing and a peace-time airplane crash, but he feels so alienated from it all...that he might as well join the aliens!
In relation to the posts above about whether Billy's extra-planetary are real or not...Some evidence suggests it was all hallucination, mainly a coping mechanism used by Billy when war-time realities became too much to bear, or when he was suffering from flashbacks.
For example, when an American soldier who has been beaten and asks, "Why me?" his German captors reply, "Vy you? Vy anybody?" - in essence the same words Billy's Tralfamadorian captors use when Billy asks them, "Why me?"
In another moment with the Tralfamadorians, Billy is described as being transported in such a manner that he cannot move and has no control over where he is going...much like the situation he was in on the German transport train to Dresden.
Montana's existence can be seen as a mere extension of Billy's imagination after seeing magazines with her cover photo...and a story about her disappearance. In his delusional state, she has joined him as the perfect sex partner; in reality, she is likely to be at the bottom of a river as part of a mafia hit.
If one takes the time to delve into the details and look for connections, this novel becomes a fascinating read with no one 'right' interpretation but several engaging possibilities.
Perhaps anyone who posits that Vonnegut had a "lack of craft" needs to re-read the novel with a more open mind regarding the style and structure of a literary work.
I must admit, you guys see so much in this book you are finally forcing me to re-appraise my attitude here. The problem is, twenty years ago I read 'Cat's Cradle', hated it as slapdash twaddle, and immediately moved on to Slaughterhouse-Five. That was brain addling.So I accept what you're getting at: the vy me?/vy anybody?, the points about free will, the transportation of POWS/abduction of the starlet, the cyanide round the dome/toxic landscape of Dresden, the wet-dream/sex show stuff. As I wrote above, there are ideas in the book. Good ideas. I just don't see the craft.
The craft? Time for a space pun? You know how in 2001, when Bowman is in the alien 'hotel room' and watches old TV programmes, there's a real sense of him being there in that weird place. It's a facsimile of his world, unreal, but still solid. That's not just because Clarke's idea was good, it's the evocation of it.
If I hadn't re-read it recently (six months ago - I first read it doing my MA in 1991), I'd have less doubts about my own judgement. It's rare for me to read a book three times - even one I love. Or maybe it's just that his style irks me, somehow. And - cue the title of this thread - the repetition!!!
Anyroad, I won't rule out a third read. Maybe in another six months.
i think it was clearly a hallucination. i havent read this book too recently but there is a large part of the book where he is in an insane asylum next to a man reading hundreds of novels and short stories by a novelist of whom i cannot remember the name of. i think Billy is supposed to have fed on these concepts of other planets and things as escapism taken extreme as it was necessary in his situations. i think billy is entirely stuck in other worlds throughout due to his lack of understanding of focus in several parts of the book. i think that the first time Billy touches the ground so to speak is when he's faced with the grim sight of the horses, their cracked and bloody hoofs etc. i think this is detached enough from war its selfs that Billy can connect with those horses and allow himself to grieve what is lost.
Kilgore Trout.As an aside, are these great character names, or what?
Kilgore Trout. Billy Pilgrim. Montana Wildhack.
Yep, he did a line in names: Yon Yonson, Roland Weary and er... Kurt Vonnegut
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Unfortunately, this meant I kept reading even when I was stressing to keep my eyes open. I haven't finished it yet, but I was able to pick up on a few things last night!
The way he describes that the prisoners of wars were in trains that were striped orange and black. And flashforward to him at his wedding, in a tent that was orange and black!
And of course the repetition of blue and ivory. I still haven't made the connection as to what he meant about that, but if I recall a little of what I read, I think it was about death?
(I'm surprised there are so few discussion boards on this book! Down with the YA discussion boards! On with the good ol' classics!)