Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut
by David Fortier
Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war book about the US bombing of Dresden was published in 1969. A time when said perpetrators of the bombing were indirectly embattled with the USSR. That struggle is much less relevant in today’s geo-political climate but with the current American president, you never really know do you? Suffice it to say that, despite it being almost 40 years since it’s release, Slaughterhouse Five is a piece of science-fiction that is as relevant as ever because war is everywhere, always has been and always will be. So it goes.
The story is a very simple and yet complicated one. It tells the story of Billy Pilgrim. A man who after being abducted by the Tralfamadorians and placed in a zoo on their home planet of Tralfamadore, begins to randomly jump back and forth in time. At one moment he’s in Germany during WW2, then he’s on a honeymoon with his wife Valencia, then he’s back in Germany and then he’s on Tralfamadore. This all culminates with the author describing the bombing of Dresden.
The story of Billy Pilgrim is told in a very hectic and wild manner. The character often travels in time in between paragraphs and I’m not quite sure what the chapters are for which makes the story very non-linear. It makes for a very interesting read and while some might find it frustrating, whenever Billy travels through time he never leaves a scene with a cliffhanger. The book is filled with dark and somewhat immature humour, like whenever there is mention of loss or death in the novel it is always followed by the phrase: “So it goes.” It is actually a Tralfamadorian saying. For the people of Tralfamadore everything has happened, will happen and will always happen. So if someone dies it’s just meant to be. So it goes.
It’s obvious that writing this book was very difficult for the author. He even mentions it in the first chapter that someone told him that instead of writing an anti-war book he should write, “an anti-glacier book,” because trying to stop war is like trying to stop a glacier. It’s impossible. This fact does not make the descriptions of the destruction of Dresden any less grim and tough to read along with the fact that 135 000 people were killed in that bombing. So it goes. Vonnegut has a character who justifies the bombings by saying that the war had to end as soon as possible and that lives were being saved. Very ironic considering the fact that Dresden is described as a city of no strategic importance.
Slaughterhouse-five is an artful and beautiful mix of dark humour and dark descriptions of war and life in general. It’s all over the place and yet sticks together to make one of the all-time greatest statements about war: that we should forget about it and only think of the good moments in life. Like you reading my review. Isn't this a nice moment? I greatly recommend this book! “Poo-tee-weet?”
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