This is the second of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels that I have read. The first being Cat’s Cradle. I remember thinking when I read Cat’s Cradle it was a bit difficult to get into it the way he writes and the odd word which I’m not sure is a reflection of the time it was written or phrases I’d just never came across before. The same was the case with Slaughterhouse Five wrote in 1969, and I found myself googling a lot of things such as being a rabble rouser, wheedle, magic fingers machine.
The main character in the book is Billy Pilgrim who is taken as a P.O.W in the second world war. He’s the sort of guy that takes things as they come. He reminded me a bit of Allan Karlsson. The book jumps sporadically from past, present and future as Billy has come unstuck in time, similar to Henry in the Time Travelers Wife. I never found it that clear whether or not the time travel actually happened or it was in Billy’s head. At some point in his life he is abducted by aliens called Tralfamadorians who live on the planet Tralfamadore. The Tralfamadorians have a different way of experiencing the passage of time than humans do. They see everything laid out from beginning to end and only choose to look at the good bits of life.
The main setting of this book is war and specifically the bombing of Dreseden in the second world war. Now maybe I should have realised this book is based on the authors real life experiences given that the foreword explains Kurt Vonnegut was a prisoner of war when Dresden was bombed in the second world war, but that fact escaped me until the last chapter. I think had I kept this in mind as I was reading I probably would have got into it more. I noticed about halfway through that there isn’t much dialogue in the book and every time death is referred to, which is a lot, it is always followed by “so it goes”. I quite like that Kurt Vonnegut creates this kind of care free idea around death, the same way that Billy looks at life and the way that lives are valued in war.
Overall I would say I preferred Cat’s Cradle to this work and it isn’t the best Science fiction I read but then if you read it with the sense that this is somewhat autobiographical you will probably get more out of it.
Favourite quotes from the book:
“How did I get so old?” – Billy’s mother, page 32. A nice reminder to us all how quick old age comes around and there’s no going back.
“I could carve a better man out of a banana†– Theodore Roosevelt, page 135.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to tell the difference”- Serenity Prayer on locket inbetween Montana Wildhacks breasts, page 153.
Overall: 65%