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Slaughterhouse Five
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I actually just read this after we did World War Z, how convenient for me. I'm still trying to figure out if Vonnegut approves of the Tralfamadorians or not. He seems to suggest or approve of their attitude toward life, how they avoid grief and their perspective on life. But towards the end when he talks about how they don't mind that their civilization is going to end in such a stupid way, that seems like he's condemning them for being complacent. Maybe he's suggesting the attitude works sometimes but it could go too far. I suspect it's deliberately vague for the reader to decide.
A strange, absurd and intriguing book that plays with conventions of genre and storytelling to great effect. I've got to say, though, that I found the first and last chapters the most engaging of the book. This is partly my usual preference for fact over fiction (though the first and last chapters could be as fictional as any of the others, they at least read as if they're reporting reality); and partly to do with the central time-travel conceit of the book. Ok, so it's likely that Vonnegut is using the Tralfmadorians to parody fatalism, particularly fatalism about war; but Billy's time-spanning knowledge of his fate means both he and the reader are without any sense of urgency or suspense. Vonnegut has a great eye for moments that are both comic and slightly painful - the hobo's last words of "You think this is bad? This ain't bad", or the description of Billy drunkenly trying to find the steering-wheel of his car from the back seat; and I like how the short, matter-of-fact sentences sometimes let Vonnegut's anger leak through: "And everyday my government gives me a count of corpses created by the military service in Vietnam. So it goes."
The sudden identification of the narrator as one of Billy's fellow POWs came as a surprise to me - any thoughts on why Vonnegut did this?
@Misterworld: I reckon he's mostly satirising the mindset that leads people to shrug off horrors like the firebombing of Dresden (or the modern equivalents in Iraq or Sri Lanka or wherever) - as unavoidable, part of the business of war. However, he does admit that you might as well try to stop glaciers as stop war - and that at least he's glad that he has some good moments in his life to look on, Tralfamodrian-style. So perhaps he's urging us to not be fatalistic, but also to have some measure of equanimity when our efforts don't lead to peace on earth.
Mod
Does anyone else's copy have the interview at the end where he talks about the real life Billy, how pitiful he was and Vonnegut's own time as a scout? It really repaints the scenes with them before they're both captured.Self-propelled, I think you phrased the attitude really well.
Thanks Misterworld. My edition doesn't have the interview - so Billy is based on a real person? Interesting, I was assuming he was Vonnegut's creation. 
Grea, i dont feel as bad being i just ordered it on Monday since i have not had time to get it,
@Self-Propelled. I was surprised too when the narrator 9i guess Vonnegut) revealed himself as a soldier in the outhouse that Billy walked in on, but there was a first person sentence when they got off of the train, too.My book started with a forward by Vonnegut about researching the and writing he book. I just read MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY, a collection of essays by Vonnegut that was recently published and I think he reworked or just reprinted this same forward. It was so spacey and lyrical I thought it was the beginning of the book. I guess he always jumps around like that.
I wish my copy had the interview at the end like Misterworlds.
So the book means to mix genres, and does it pretty well, but is it more sci-fi or more fantasy?
I was listening to it as an audiobook, read by Matthew Modine. At the end there's Vonnegut reading the section where Billy watches the war movie in reverse. Then he talks with an interviewer a bit about the real Billy who signed up because he thought the war was right and he wanted to be a patriot but he was a damn fool who had no business being there. He talks a little about being a scout, and that when they were all captured the real Billy suffered a total breakdown and lost his mind forever. "Billy" did not survive the camp, his mind had totally eroded and regressed. He talks a little about the fire bombing of Dresden. He seemed angry that the armies participating decided to do this terrible thing, turning an entire city into a pillar of flame for several days, simply because they could. Not for destroying the enemy, not for tactical value, but because they could. To see if the theory would work they crushed an entire city.
I think Vonnegut acknowledges that at some point we're going to have wars and we're going to fight, but maybe he wishes we were more sensible about it. To better understand ourselves and why we're doing it. Before we go crushing a city full of prisoners because we can.
I read this book last autumn, around Veteran's Day, on a friend's suggestion. As a veteran myself, I've gone through a few periods of self-reflection about my own actions and what I've been taught as historical fact concerning war. Every person's experience in these events is different, and valid, if not entirely moral or ethical. SH5 certainly illustrates Vonnegut's views and I can relate to them. It is a depressing view, but war is a depressing experience. I'm glad that I've read it, but I've no wish to re-read it.
I read this book in high school for AP English and didn't get it. It's still not one of my favorite books, but I'm glad I re-read it for the RRC. Vonnegut's writing style is hard for me to enjoy, but I can better appreciate what he is trying to say about war and why people do stupid things. I agree with Self-propelled, the Trafalmagorian way of looking at time & life is admirable when it comes to seeing the positive and remembering the good things, but letting things just happen to you will never make you happy. That is what Billy does for most of his life, until after the plane crash. Then he starts to take charge of his life, even if it is only to talk about being abducted by aliens. Or something.
Mod
One point that I found particularly powerful was the idea that no one dies, that we all exist in a certain point of time. This was such a beautiful idea but also echoes why Billy seemed to just coast through life. If everything is already pre-determined and dying does not matter, then dying itself loses its true purpose, which is to actually live a full life. The thing is, if you read between the lines, Billy *has* lived a full life. He's survived the brutal bombing of Dresden, went on to become a fairly well-off optometrist, married and has a loving family (though his daughter sounds like a jerk). If his time-traveling, then, is more a hallucination of certain poignant periods of his life which he is watching passively, then it's easy to assume that he has just floated through life even though the opposite might be true.
Don't let the ease of reading fool you--Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters..." Slaughterhouse-Five (taken from the name of the building where the POWs were held) is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy--and humor."
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