Don’t Skip This: Slaughterhouse-Five

Remember that summer reading list in high school that you blew off? There were some pretty great titles you skipped and you’ve spent your adult life hearing references to them. What did you miss? And why are these titles still thrown around today? Are they really that good? Here’s your chance to redeem yourself: we’re taking a candid look at a lot of these books and building a case for finally picking up that book years later.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Author:
Kurt Vonnegut
Genre:
Darkly comedic sci-fi war satire.
Length:
Roughly 200 pages, depending on the edition.
Difficulty Level:
9^th grade
Selling Point:
One of literature’s defining war satires.

The Gist:
This is the story of Billy Pilgrim, a man who’s become unstuck in time. This basically means that his consciousness drifts from one point in his life to another in a random, non-chronological order that doesn’t even end in death. In fact, Billy has experienced his own death multiple times. So it goes.

In fact, Billy has experienced his own death multiple times.

The book follows Billy Pilgrim through his travels in time. We see his adolescence and his education to be an optometrist. We learn of his abduction and captivity by the alien Tralfamadorians. We see him get married to an ugly woman, become rich, have kids, and grow old. Perhaps most importantly, we witness Billy’s service as an army chaplain’s assistant, ultimately getting captured by German soldiers and housed in Slaughterhouse-Five at Dresden. This was just before the bombing of Dresden in WWII, which (according to early reports) killed more people with incendiaries and high explosives than were killed at Hiroshima by a nuclear bomb. So it goes.

Common Misconceptions:
This story defies categorization. Even in the way this story is structured – non-chronological, without a clear beginning or end – it’s completely unlike most other books out there. Furthermore, the book can’t be put under a single genre, because it belongs to no less than three. It must be considered a war satire, because anti-war sentiments are the heart and core of the book. It must be considered a black comedy, because Vonnegut’s distinct brand of dark humor is what separates it from all the other doom-and-gloom stories in protest of war. Last but not least, this book must be considered science fiction.

The book is hardly stereotypical sci-fi, but it uses pseudo-scientific concepts to illustrate the human condition, as great science fiction is supposed to do. For instance, Vonnegut uses the “unstuck in time” concept as a thinly-veiled metaphor for PTSD, in addition to such themes as alienation and displacement that are so common in stories about war veterans.

They’re a species of extraterrestrials who study various other living beings in the cosmos.

Then we’ve got the Tralfamadorians. They’re a species of extraterrestrials who study various other living beings in the cosmos. Also, they’re capable of seeing in four dimensions. Put simply, the Tralfamadorians play the part of a higher power that’s able to observe and comment on humanity’s weakness and stupidity from an objective point of view. Perhaps the most famous of their observations is how foolish they consider the practice of mourning over death. After all, because the Tralfamadorians see time as well as space, those who die are always still alive and clearly visible from their perspective. Furthermore, the Tralfamadorians accept passing away as a foregone conclusion because they see exactly when and how death will come. Hence the Tralfamadorian response to death, “So it goes.”

Is it still worth it?
Hell yeah. Through dark imagery, ingenious use of flashbacks, and a razor-sharp wit, Vonnegut created a timeless commentary on war and human bloodlust that gets the point across without ever being preachy. Additionally, the science fiction aspects are brilliantly creative in such a way that they don’t distract from the book’s thematic content, but enhance it.

Where can I find it? How much does it cost?
A paperback copy will cost eight or nine dollars. Oddly enough, the Kindle eBook is roughly the same price. Luckily, new and used copies of this book are everywhere, so finding a better deal shouldn’t be difficult.