Slaughterhouse 5

Kurt Vonnegut

Average Rating 9/10 (1 Review)

Prisoner of war, optometrist, time-traveller - these are the life roles of Billy Pilgrim, hero of this latter-day Pilgrim's Progress, a miraculously moving, bitter and funny story of innocence faced with apocalypse, in the most original anti-war novel since Catch 22.

Slaughterhouse 5 is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centring on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden in the Second World War, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.

About the Author:
Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922 and studied biochemistry at Cornell University. During WWII, as a prisoner of war in Germany, he witnessed the destruction of Dresden by Allied bombers, an experience which inspired Slaughterhouse 5. He died in 2007.

'One of the master alchemists of modern American fiction.'

'An extraordinary success. It is a book we need to read and re-read... funny, compassionate and wise.'

'A work of keen literary artistry.'

Review by Nigel (301200) Rating (9/10)

Review by Nigel
Rating 9/10
I read this book to get a V in the past reviews index; weird!

I think the best way to describe it is as a collage of experiences, stuck together in a rather haphazard manner, with some very strange ideas.

However, it is very readable and very funny in places with some wicked black humour. I can't make up my mind if we are seeing events through the eyes of a person who has gone insane because of the war, a person who really does meet aliens and travels backwards and forwards through time, or a person who is very old reliving his life... I may have to read it again!

Recommended. I think I will try more Kurt Vonnegut novels to see if it's the character or the writer that is odd.:)
Nigel (30th December 2000)