Mission Complete:
Read a classic book
Read a book you own but have never read
(Haha, that’s the whole point of this blog!)
Read a book with a number in the title
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim’s odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most.
So it goes.
Before I get into the book, however, I’d like to mention just how much trouble I had reading this book. Not because of the story, but because of the physical book itself.
For some reason I just couldn’t keep a hold of it. It kept slipping out of grasp, like a fish trying to get back to water. If I got up and set the book down, it would find a way to tumble off a ledge it wasn’t actually anywhere near. If I read it laying down, it would inevitably fall on my face (which happens sometimes, but not every single time). If I laid the book on the bed and kept it open with my fingers, the book would somehow slip from under my fingers and then snap shut. (I’m honestly not sure how it would happen. Was I subconsciously pushing it away? Is it possessed??)
I don’t think I’ve ever had this much trouble holding a book before.
Okay, back to our regularly scheduled program:
This book is … odd.
I should probably point out that this is the first Kurt Vonnegut book I’ve ever read, so I had no idea what was in store for me.
The first chapter is the author attempting to write about the Dresden bombing. He’s been telling people for years that he’s going to write it – but can’t seem to find an angle. He doesn’t remember much on his own, so late one night (he has trouble sleeping) he calls up an old war buddy who had also been there and asks if they could meet and talk about it. The buddy, O’Hare, agrees, but when they finally get together, both men find that they can’t think of a single thing to say.
O’Hare’s wife, however, is pretty vocal about her disapproval of the author’s visit. She thinks he’s going to write the book as some grand adventure that’ll just inspire others to sign up to go to war.
And then more young people will die horribly.
The author assures her that he isn’t going to do anything like that. He tells her that he’ll call it The Children’s War. She likes him better after that.
Still not able to find an angle to write after his visit, the author decides to write the story about Billy Pilgrim.
Billy Pilgrim who was also there at Dresden.
Billy Pilgrim who has become unstuck in time.
Billy Pilgrim who had once (and always) been kidnapped by aliens called Tralfamadorians and taken to their home planet as part of a zoo exhibit.
Like I said, this book is odd.
The narrative, much like the main character, slips in and out of time, through varying scenes from the Billy’s life, including his time on Tralfamadore, and including his experience at Dresden. It then circles around to land at the beginning of a situation, only to fly off on different tangent again.
If you’re looking for graphic and/or detailed descriptions of the bombing of Dresden, you won’t find it here. If you’re looking for a hard boiled take on the psychological toll war has on its own soldiers, well, you really won’t find that here either.
Instead, the author subtly seeps these effects into the fabric of his meandering and sometimes ridiculous story, only sometimes coming out in full sarcasm and/or troubling observation:
The Germans and the dog were engaged in a military operation which had an amusingly self-explanatory name, a human enterprise which is seldom described in detail, whose name alone, when reported as news or history, gives many war enthusiasts a sort of post-coital satisfaction. It is, in the imagination of combat’s fans, the divinely listless loveplay that followed the orgasm of victory. It is called “mopping up”.
There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces.
As for Billy – I think the best word I can use to describe him is passive. And a little disconnected. I think that characterization is entirely on purpose. Not just to show the effects of war, but because that’s how we are when it comes to war. Passive.
War happens. People die. So it goes.
But nothing happens in a vacuum. Nothing just is. We all got here through a series of decisions made by the people before us and around us. Decisions made by ourselves. We can’t change the decisions people have made in the past – but we can look at those consequences and work – work hard – at making better ones for ourselves and for the future.
I’m still not sure how I feel about this odd book – but I can’t say it wasn’t an interesting ride!
Fish Bowl Books 