Product Description

Prisoner of war, optometrist, time-traveller - these are the life roles of Billy Pilgrim, hero of this miraculously moving, bitter and funny story of innocence faced with apocalypse. "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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #407 in Books
• Published on: 1991-10-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
It took Vonnegut more than 20 years to put his Dresden experiences into words. He explained, "there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again." Slaughterhouse Five is a powerful novel incorporating a number of genres. Only those who have fought in wars can say whether it represents the experience well. However, what the novel does do is invite the reader to look at the absurdity of war. Human versus human, hedonist politicians pressing buttons and ordering millions to their deaths all for ideologies many cannot even comprehend. Flicking between the US, 1940's Germany and Tralfamadore, Vonnegut's semi- autobiographical protagonist Billy Pilgrim finds himself very lost. One minute he is being viewed as a specimen in a Tralfamadorian Zoo, the next he is wandering a post-apocalyptic city looking for corpses. Slaughterhouse Five-Or The Children's Crusade A Duty-Dance with Death is a remarkable blend of black humour, irony, the truth and the absurd. The author regards his work a "failure", millions of readers do not. Released the same time bombs were falling on South East Asia, this title caused controversy and awakening. Essential reading for all. So it goes. --Jon Smith

Review
In this classic novel that still resonates today, Vonnegut introduces us to the hapless Billy Pilgrim, stuck in the misery of the Second World War, a tragi-comic hero belittled and abused by his soldier colleagues as they retreat behind enemy lines. Unarmed, in a daze of misery, hunger and exhaustion, Billy stumbles alongside the obnoxious Roland Weary as he relates his knowledge of torture methods. Just as it seems that Billy's ordeal can get no worse, he is captured by the Germans and force-marched to a prison camp. It is at this point that his brain decides to take a holiday and he becomes Billy Pilgrim, time traveller. As the theatre of war enacts its ghastly tableaux against a backdrop of brutality and death, Billy tumbles in and out of his life, as it was, as it is, as it will be. Billy sees himself as a child, a newly wed on honeymoon, the only survivor of a plane crash, and a zoological specimen on the planet Tralfamadore. War-time Billy is taken to Dresden, there to work as a POW, sleeping in 'Slaughterhouse 5' in a city unaware of its soon-to-be-notorious fate. Already unhinged by the diabolical acts of cruelty that mankind seems capable of inflicting on itself, he is witness to the destruction of Dresden before being sent home to resume life as normal. Billy continues to stumble through an existence he doesn't seem to want or enjoy, until the moment comes when he tell the world that death is merely another dimension - the aliens who kidnapped him have told him so. Vonnegut's deadly humour and caustic observations on a war he himself participated in reveal its lunacy, as humans become units of cruelty, driven only by the will to survive. Billy Pilgrim, helpless in a world he does not understand, is a powerful protagonist in this masterpiece of American writing. (Kirkus UK)

Synopsis
Prisoner of war, optometrist, time-traveller - these are the life roles of Billy Pilgrim, hero of this miraculously moving, bitter and funny story of innocence faced with apocalypse. "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.

Customer Reviews

Realities of War
Catch 22 exposes the ruthless realities of war and subsequently the harsh realities of life, as the novel depicts war as a microcosm of life itself. By doing this Heller are showing to the reader that war is just as inevitable as life itself and that life is sometimes as harsh and unyielding as war.

Didn't Live up to Expectation
It bored me half to death. Slow moving, uninteresting, frustrating and somewhat confusing. Would have been better if the writer had stuck to one plot. Only worth reading to say you've read it.

Curious, philosophical, wide reaching great book
The first chapter in this book is in the first person which gives context to the rest of the book. I always forget how rare, but enjoyable, it is to read first person until you come across it, generally in autobiographies. This gave a fascinating start which engaged my curiosity from the beginning.
I loved the swapping backwards and forwards in time. It was initially unsettling but once I accepted that was normal then it was a very relaxing technique. The use of the fourth dimension led to a interesting conclusion that when a body dies it doesn't matter as there are still times when it was alive and they can be revisited at any time.
Billy has memories from the future which is a great concept and I loved his complete acceptance of what will be happening at some time and also accepting his inability to change it.
I'm not quite sure how the author managed to acheive it, but the suspense was retained all through the novel even though, through Billy, the reader has already seen the end of the story.
There is a thin line between the philosophical genius of Billy and his lunatic tendancies which increase as the time progressed towards his death.
This is the first Kurt Vonnegut book I have read and I will read more.