About this title: SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, a best-seller when it was first published in 1969, brought Kurt Vonnegut to prominence as a major voice in American fiction. Vonnegut was a POW held in Dresden in 1945 when the city was attacked by American bombers and virtually obliterated, leaving more than 130,000 people dead. He uses that event as the climax of this satirical and horrifying anti-war novel, in which a young man named Billy Pilgrim experiences much of what Vonnegut himself saw during the war. Unlike his creator however, Pilgrim has become "unstuck in time" following his abduction by aliens thus ...
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Description: Very Good. 0440180295 Mass Market Paperback, Condition: Very Good; this book is in very good condition with light discoloration due to aging and other light wear. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Delta
Date Published: 1999
ISBN-13:9780385333849ISBN:0385333846
Description: Fair. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 288 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. pages 247 to 252 are partially; text is present read more
Description: Very Good. 0440180295 Mass Market Paperback, Condition: Very Good; this book is in very good condition with light curve to the spine / light reading creases to the covers. read more
Description: Fair. Edgewear to dust jacket, some rubbing to edges of hardcover boards, a few minimal highlights, and name on inside of front cover. Still a good reading copy. E2b. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Laurel Book
Date Published: 1991
ISBN-13:9780440180296ISBN:0440180295
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Cover shows minor wear; pages appear unmarked, text lightly tanned. Contains: Illustrations. read more
Edition: Third Printing
Binding: Trade Paperback
Publisher: Delta, New York
Date Published: 1969
Description: Very Good. A supremely unconventional war novel based on the experiences of the author as a prisoner of war during the catastrophic fire-bombing of Dresden during World War II. Light wear with crease on rear cover, covers slightly age-toned, previous owner's name on the half-title page, clean text, tight binding. An early paperback printing of this classic novel. Softcover, 186 pp. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Dell, New York
Date Published: 1971
Description: Good. 8vo. 215pp. Cover has light edge wear. Spine is creased. Owner's name on flyleaf. Pages are lightly browned but remain clean and unmarked. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Delta
Date Published: 1969
Description: Acceptable. Water damaged Water staining on bottom spine edge Spine broken General Reading Copy, All pages and text intact, May contain highlighting/marking or other serious defects. Major defects may exist which may or may not be noted All domestic items shipped within 24 hours. International orders shipped within 72 hours. Customer Service isn't just a motto for us, its a way of life. read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Dell Publishing, New York
Date Published: 1971
Description: Good. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Wraps scuffed and aging with minor edgewear. Pages are faintly tanning with no markings, dampstain on margin edge of first 17 pp.. read more
Description: Good. } Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Dell Publishing Company
Date Published: 1991
ISBN-13:9780440180296ISBN:0440180295
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Excellent condition. Very light edge and corner wear. No marks. Tight binding. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 224 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
"Everyone should read this book at least once, as it is rightly viewed as a masterpiece of American literature.
Kurt Vonnegut feeds his experience as a prisoner of war in Dresden through a tangled prism of time travel and outer space and out comes the truly arresting question of how we find ourselves after we're lost. Vonnegut's exploration of this question is dynamic, sad, and at times quite funny, though it is up for debate as to whether this question can ever be answered. It's a great work of fiction."
"Ben Roberts gave me this book for my sixteenth birthday. I asked him what it was about and he said it was about World War Two and the bombing of Dresden and an American POW who is abducted by UFO's. But then he added that it was only kind of about those things, about those things but not really, hard to explain. Then he walked off. Anyway, I was definitely interested in WW2 at the time--and sadly, many, many other wars, some even nonfictional--and so that night at 16 when I flipped open the first page of that beat-up second-hand paper-back that I'm sure Ben had used to insulate something at one point, I only found a man with a bad attitude rambling about some things and he didn't seem to have a very heroic view of things. I was fanatic about heroics at the time, because I went to private school and didn't understand what that meant. Most of the other kids had no problem with it, because they understood that the first rule of private school, especially a religious one, is to say you believe in things and act as though you believe in things and harshly ridicule those who transgress the things you believe, when in fact you believe in absolutely nothing and take your parents credit card out with you on the weekends. My parents never gave me their credit card and I had a hard time fitting in because I did believe in things, like heroism, and it was years after I graduated before I realized why kids used to stare at me blankly when I talked about heroics and fighting against evil for good. Poor me, I wasn't rich, wasn't good at football, got bored too easily with classes and got kicked out of the drama department for cutting up with the more popular actors than myself: heroics was all I had. So, when I realized that no one was going to get killed (at least not the way I wanted them to, heroically) and that there were no space ships laden with other-worldly warriors coming to attack us, I put it down. Probably for Tolkien. Or a Star Wars novel. I sold Ben's second-hand copy that he gave me for my birthday years ago. Sorry Ben.
So, fourteen years and a few days later I opened it back up again. Things had changed. It was a much better book. I was surprised. And very pleased. I know this is one of those books that you're supposed to read in high school, but I didn't because I hated reading because I was afraid I would turn into the kids I went to school with--most of whom would never read a book again after graduating and some who would destroy the parts of their brains that the read was stored in through drug use and some that would die. So it goes. But here today, looking back, I'm glad I didn't read it. I'm glad I waited till now. But enough about my reading.
I want to venture to say that this may be one of the tightest books--thematically, elementally, rhetorically--I have ever read. It is poetry in the highest order disguised under Vonnegut's gruff, bar-stool vernacular. It's easy enough, if not dangerous, for kids, who can pick up on the book's (and Vonnegut's) bad attitude pretty quickly. But dangerous because the average 17 year old can't possibly understand what this is about, though he could pick up on the basic angst and feel as though he got it. Also, the average high schooler probably wouldn't read this unless he or she was getting class credit. To those who did read this for their own good, I'd highly recommend re-reading if you haven't already. I think you'll find a lot that you missed the first time around.
One of the novel's particular strengths is it's voice. It would not be difficult to imagine Vonnegut reciting this story to someone sitting next to him in a bar, the prose is so familiar, so self-aware and irreverent. But thematically, it's iconoclasm is another of the novel's strengths. Vonnegut is not vindictive in his assaults on how Americans saw and thought of America and other Americans post-war. Like Ben said, it's about those things but not really. It's profound and funny and sad at points, but not really. That's not why you laugh. The novel's broken and a-chronological order drive home its elements more fully, and the small details he uses to link everything together add layer upon layer.
The greatest strength of the novel, I feel, however, is that Vonnegut doesn't waste a word. Everything is there than needs to be without any excess--and tied together so perfectly. It's breathtaking really, like a matador that so enchants a bull that he can kiss it on the forehead. I cannot praise it enough."
"I'm on the homestretch with this one. Call it a reread if you would like. Originally, I listened to this on audio book a few years back with Ethan Hawk as narrator, and to be brutally honest to poor Ethan: his reading really detracted from the harsh beauty of this novel.
I didn't know much about Vonnegut before listening to it and felt that it was a good idea to read it though without the vocal distraction. Boy, am I glad I did. The time-traveling Tralfamadorians world view is so distinct and wonderful, and yet at other times completely mind bending. Combining the historic war accounts with that make this very versatile, and I love when Vonnegut frequently breaks the fourth wall down to remind you that, MOST of this is true.
What could I end this review with that would be more apropos than, so it goes.
Edit: I'm finished now. SH5 ended the way that it always would've and will always continue to. Po-tee-weet?"
"Breaking with my usual habit of giving what I like to think are clear, well-reasoned explanations of why I did or didn't like a particular book, I'm giving "Slaughterhouse-Five" five stars with little elaboration. I'll simply say that this was my first time revisiting the book since first reading it in high school, and part of the reason for my high rating is that it held up incredibly well -- something I can say of few books I loved as a teenager.
Kurt Vonnegut's writing simply touches my reptilian brain stem in a way few authors' books do. I don't know that I love "Slaughterhouse-Five" as much as I do "Breakfast of Champions" -- one's favorite Vonnegut book is often the one he read first, and for me that was "Breakfast" -- but it's still a great book.
In "Slaughterhouse-Five," Vonnegut makes mention that one of his recurring characters, science-fiction author Kilgore Trout, has great ideas but is a terrible writer. Fortunately for his readers, Vonnegut both had great ideas and was a wonderful writer. His exploration of the life of a character who spends his entire existence bouncing among various highlights of his life -- becoming, in Vonnegut's parlance, unstuck in time -- is consistently creative and insightful. One may be tempted to criticize Vonnegut for making Billy Pilgrim an overly passive character, for never having him take control of his life or fight back, but such passivity makes complete sense for someone who realizes he has no free will -- that the story of his life, and death, has already been written and nothing he does will alter it.
Despite its dark subject matter, "Slaughterhouse-Five" is occasionally quite funny, and not just sardonically so. Having forgotten the scene from my first reading of "Slaughterhouse-Five," I laughed out loud at Kilgore Trout convincing a less-than-brilliant woman at a party that all of his novels are completely true -- that it would be a violation of the law for him to write a story that was untrue.
It turns out I said more about "Slaughterhouse-Five" than I intended to. Be glad, though, that I managed to write this whole review without saying "so it goes." Well, until now. So it goes."
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