Slaughterhouse 5- Kurt Vonnegut – Review

Admittedly, I first read this incredible novel in 1973. The Vietnam War was still raging, and Nixon and his "intellectual" henchman, Henry Kissinger, were secretly carpet-bombing Cambodia and Laos. We did not know this then, but it soon came to light with the Pentagon Papers. It continues to be classified; however, the number of civilian deaths due to this war crime reaches millions. There is no doubt that Slaughterhouse 5 is the #antiwar novel of my generation.

It feels extraordinary reviewing a novel I read over 40 years ago. Though I re-read this novel in one sleepless bout just last night. Despite feeling shell-shocked at work today, the read was a new revelation. And to read a life-changing book again over close to half a century, and feel the same inspiration, is truly a remarkable event.

The book's narrator is a strange character, Yon Yonson, from Wisconsin. Yon is a WWII veteran who happened to experience the firebombing of Dresden. He tells the tale of a fellow vet, Billy Pilgrim, a time-traveling neurotic, who also was a prisoner of war during the firebombing of this unique German city that murdered, in one short morning, over 170,000 civilians.

Billy is a time traveler after being abducted by aliens from his backyard in Ilium, New York. The aliens are from Tralfamador. He is taken prisoner and placed in an enormous transparent dome with all the human amenities. Billy is in a Tralfamador zoo for entertainment. It is here he time travels in a schizophrenic fashion, jumping all over the timeline of his life. Vonnegut writes in a true post-modernist style, narrating non-linearly, bouncing from one scene to another in no logical form.

Billy Pilgrim is an interesting character., a symbolic representation of a vet who has been wounded by his war experiences. However, he is also a non-being, an existential nature who understands he has been "thrown" into the world and doesn't want to be here. It is this almost apathetic, innocent view of his existence that, in most cases, saved his life through the war.

Slaughterhouse 5 is truly a work of genius in storytelling, but Vonnegut's humor, irony, and ultimate sadness are more significant when addressing the insanity of war.

At the end of the war, Dresden had no factories making bombs, no garrison of Nazi troops, and only a small group of Russian and American prisoners of war. Dresden was a city of classical beauty, described by the likes of Mozart, Beethoven, Goethe, and the writers and artists of the 19^th and 20^th centuries as an architectural miracle. There was no reason to firebomb Dresden to an unrecognizable moonscape. The bombing of Dresden murdered more innocents than the Atomic bombs in Japan. And remember, Japan had been firebombed every week before Truman decided to prove US power to the Soviets. This was pure (evil) devastation in wartime.

The bombing of Dresden remained a secret (except for the Germans) in the interests of National Security. So whenever I hear a US war rep or politician state, "National Security," I automatically think *War Crime*. And history recent history proves this to be true.

Slaughterhouse 5's publication in 1969, through satire and irony, revealed the absurdity of war.

It is no accident that Vonnegut subtitled the novel "The Children's Crusade" or "A Duty-Dance with Death." Because, like today, we sacrifice our babies in war. 

*We send our children*.