Quick Review of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

By Jeff Hackman

September 7, 2009

I read this 1969 novel over our 4-day Labor Day weekend. I can’t remember reading any novel that fast (besides a Star Trek paperback). Obviously it kept my attention. Speaking of Star Trek, Billy Pilgrim’s leaping through time reminded me of Captain Picard’s experience in the Next Generation finale. Sci-fi fans will love Five.

I think Vonnegut was trying to make a statement about the constancy of human behavior. “So it goes” was his mantra. He often wrote this after casually mentioning a tragedy. For someone who saw first-hand the firebombing of Dresden, it seems a strange reaction. I suppose it is one way of coping with horrendous truth. After all, what are the alternatives?

As a social studies teacher, my work deals with horrific events. How do I respond? One could be overwhelmed into paralysis. One could be overcome by grief. Vonnegut, at least on the surface seems to have simply accepted that “these things happen”, and we should just focus on the pleasantries of life.

To put the work in context I’d need to read more of Vonnegut, and I believe I will. His writing is dense with meaning and symbolism (though my speed of reading was probably a detriment to getting the full impact of his prose).

I was pleased with how he integrated some commentary of current events of his time (the Vietnam War) into the novel. He did this very deliberately toward the end of the book, and had I read the book in 1969 (though I was only eight years old then, and not quite ready for the R-rated aspects of the novel), I’m sure there were additional connections not seen in 2009.

It was a very good book, one I need to read again sometime. If only there were more four-day weekends … so it goes.