کتاب رو دو بار خوندم. یه بار خلاصهٔ کتاب رو که برای رادیو تنظیم شده بود، با اجرای بهروز رضوی گوش دادم. و حس کردم داستان بی نظیرتر از اونه که فقط اجرای رادیوییش رو گوش بدم. به خاطر همین برای تولد برادرم کتابو براش خریدم. خودش هنوز که هنوزه کتاب رو نخونده اما من همون موقع خوندمش.

کتاب بی نظیره. لحن طنز برای توصیف کشتارهای وحشتناک، ترکیب داستان جنگ با داستان علمی تخیلی و فانتزی، و وقایع و شخصیت های زیاد. همه و همه کتاب رو تبدیل به یه اثر لذت بخش کرده‌ن. یه جای داستان صحنه‌اى فوق العاده هست که راوی داستان که در زمان پخش شده و ناخواسته به عقب و جلو میره، یک فيلم مستند راجع به تولید بمب تماشا مى کنه، اما همون موقع در زمان به عقب حرکت می کنه و فیلم رو از آخر به اول می بینه: كارگرها بمب ها رو به مواد اوليه تجزيه مى كنن و معدنچى ها اين مواد اوليه رو به زير زمين مى برن و با دقت زير سنگ ها مخفى مى کننن تا اين مواد خطرناک به كسى آسيب نزنه.
بعد از چند سال مرور این صحنه هنوز برام لذت‌بخشه.

Kurt Vonnegut always had his own unique attitude to society and history. Therefore Slaughterhouse-Five is a special story of man and his place in war and peace.

Shells were bursting in the treetops with terrific bangs showering down knives and needles and razorblades. Little lumps of lead in copper jackets were crisscrossing the woods under the shellbursts, zipping along much faster than sound.

War is a wonderful thing – it presents a man with a gift of madness. And madness is even a more wonderful thing – it allows a man to travel in time, to go through space to distant planets, to see things others can’t see.

‘Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, here we are… trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.’

So it goes… Then it stops…

This book was really good, kinda of strange, & the ending was an interesting ending. But all in all I would read more from this author Kurt Vonnegut

ITS A BOOK WRITTEN FOR EARTHLINGS.

An amazing journey through space and time. One of the stronger points in the book deals with free will and time.

There is a beautiful line which I want to quote here:

" I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will".

And so it goes...

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Σπουδαίο αντιπολεμικό βιβλίο, χιουμοριστική και ταυτόχρονα ζέστη γραφή, θεοπάλαβοι ήρωες και μια γερή δόση σουρεαλισμού για να αντιληφθεί κανείς τον παραλογισμό του πολέμου. Ούτε αίματα και σοκαριστικές ανατροπές, ούτε τυμπανοκρουσίες και εμβατήρια, ούτε σοβαροφάνεια. Ένας ύμνος στον Άνθρωπο και ένα υπόδειγμα εξαιρετικής γραφής. Έτσι πάει.

War is awful, and that’s that. There’s no glory to kill or be killed, no sentimentalism is to be associated with a piece of red ribbon in exchange for your savagery, nor is there anything romantic about dying like a dog at a battlefield or be scourged by the fire of opponent banners, no glory indeed in transition of a boy of delicate heart into a man cold and frost within months, as there are no unwounded soldiers at the end of the day, neither are the victors. Worst still are the wars waged in which the instigating force was religion, men committed crimes so atrocious to be spoken out loud and with no tinge of remorse.
For me, the ever ubiquitous global conspiracy is been to keep people hooked on a certain kind of doctrine, irrespective of which one, so they don’t question authority. I wonder sometimes what would have happened if everyone without a choice would have made a choice anyway. If we all chose not to participate. Not to be bullied. Not to take up arms. Not to persecute. What would happen then? Well, there wouldn’t have been any bloodsheds, gassings, firebombing, just this past morning in our bloodied history.
Billy pilgrim was never the same after he turned with wind in his lungs to draw more breaths and a piece of beating flesh between the chest still, to support life, at the end of war, nor was he expected to. If you return in the evening home, after witnessing grotesques of scenes of an unfortunate accident in your way back, you don’t start sipping your coffee in the balcony of your summer home and move about merrily whistling to some favorite tone, taking a long luxury bath and making love wild and sweet, it takes you a good long while to adjust with your present, to bury down the flashbacks of your perturbed mind, being played and replayed on the screen in frenzy.
Billy, wasn’t the witness, he was the accident, a long term trauma, a nonstop show of human drudgery, blooming despair, cutting cold, killings, starvation, uncertainty and a horrendous joke being played of which he was an actor, poorly equipped, not willing to play an active part, yet an actor nonetheless. His distorted and disorderly flashbacks from the war, postwar and his life before it, are as jumbled and lackluster, sparse and disjointed as a war novel must be. A city of no apparent military value, Dresden was bombed in order to bring Germany to its knees and thus to hasten the end of the war. Billy’s experiences in Dresden have an almost surreal but intense mix of pathos and trivia, making a strong case for Billy’s post-traumatic stress disorder, Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.
A threadbare, fragmented and clumsily woven story right from the war front, is not expected to be rich in form and structure, scrumptious and sweet to delight your senses, or to provide a happily ever after. There are no happily ever afters in war, only causalities, nor are there any survivors, only victims, for whom war never ceased but took accommodation within them, for whom the cannons always marched forward, bullets kept rustling through leaves, shells kept hitting the streets, the glazed eyed soldier kept dying with despair in his soon to close eyes, sirens kept screaming far above, cities kept burning..

“How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”

The author was taken as prisioner of war and was in Dresden (Germany) when it was bombard. So it goes. Having failed to write a book on his war experiences - probably because of psychological stress involved in it ; he veils himself in character of Bill:

“Every so often, for no apparent reason, Billy Pilgrim would find himself weeping. Nobody ever caught Billy doing it, only the doctor knew. It was an extremely quiet thing Billy did and not very moist."

The transition from writer to character happens within the book and thus loosing the point where reality ends and fiction starts. This in fact, is beauty of book – it is not the best war novel, but it shows beautifully how easy it is for a disturbed person to lose her/himself into world of fiction.

When I saw aliens in it and easy, frequently funny narration - I start doubting the truth of Billy's war experiences as well but “All this happened, more or less.” The aliens are in fact are result of Billy's schizophrenia.

His sufferings, desire to escape and sexual desires combined to create a world of illusions, where he created for himself the answers to problems that tormented him in real life. (the sci-fiction he liked to read gave him material for same)

The so called time travel are the old memories that keep imposing themselves upon him. There is no escaping those old memories (which is veiled in forever existence of time): “All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.”

The determinism, in above quote, which is just fancy word for fatalism, is a recurring theme in this book:

“Among the things Billy pilgrim could not change were the past, present, and future.”

“- Why me?
- That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?
- Yes.
- Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.”

When asked if he was happy in his prison in alien planet, he replied ‘about as happy as he was on Earth. Such fatalism stop him from taking any stand, through out the book Billy is like fish caught off water – just struggling to stay alive.

“One of main effect of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.”

And not to mention, Vonnegut’s usual satire on general stupidity of humanity (particularly war), his questioning of assumptions we hold (specially that seven parent thing) etc.

“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”

5★
“And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.

So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes.

People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.

I've finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun.

This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt.”

Dresden. February 1945. The author narrates the story of Billy Pilgrim and says, almost as an aside, that he was there. Vonnegut certainly was there, and this is his story, except that he seems to have dealt better than Billy with the horrors (and there is no better word) of the war he survived. He says Americans never really knew about Dresden.

This was published in 1969 and added fuel to the fire of the anti-Vietnam war protesters.

There are several different layers of time – the last year or so of the winter war in Germany, various times in the future and the present, and a life lived on the distant planet of Tralfamadore, to which Billy has been abducted and lives in a zoo to be watched and admired. So it goes (as the author says throughout).

He may be in a hospital bed in one scene, doze off, and wake up in a freezing boxcar in Germany on his way to the POW camp. Or he may wake up in Tralfamador where his wife (human) says he’s been away again, hasn’t he? So it goes.

If we think it’s confusing, imagine what’s going on in Billy’s head. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, managed in the “present” by his doctor who tells him only to have naps every afternoon. He does. And he cries. In secret. So it goes.

Each scenario is as real as the other, and it seems entirely believable that Billy sees the future as well as the past. He’s a likeable man who experienced terrible things. He marries a woman whom he says isn’t the sort he’d really like to marry, but he’s seen into the future and knows that he has a pretty good life with her, so why not? It’s an interesting idea.

But the reason for the story is the bombing of Dresden, and like Lot’s wife, the author was compelled to look back. Vonnegut tried for a long time to write about the war, but he tells us he wanted to discuss it with his good friend first. He went to visit, and was surprised to be cold-shouldered by the friend’s wife, Mary. She finally explains why.

“‘You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs.’

So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies.

So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise: ‘Mary,’ I said, ‘I don't think this book of mine is ever going to be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne.

I tell you what’ I said, ‘I'll call it ’The Children's Crusade’.

She was my friend after that.”

This is that book and it is dedicated to her.

As an American prisoner of war in Germany, Billy and the others were housed in a slaughterhouse, building number five, and worked in a factory. When they heard the allies were bombing, they went down below into what seems to have been a cavern.

“So it goes. A guard would go to the head of the stairs every so often to see what it was like outside, then he would come down and whisper to the other guards. There was a fire-storm out there. Dresden was one big flame. The one flame ate everything organic, everything that would burn.

It wasn't safe to come out of the shelter until noon the next day. When the Americans and their guards did come out, the sky was black with smoke. The sun was an angry little pinhead. Dresden was like the moon now, nothing but minerals. The stones were hot. Everybody else in the neighborhood was dead.

So it goes.”

It’s quite a ride, from bleeding feet traipsing across war-ravaged, frozen Germany to the future, back to the past, to Tralfamadore and to a reasonably prosperous middle-class, middle-American life.

It’s certainly an amazing example of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder consuming a man’s life and how he learned to live with it. I see many readers have classified it as science fiction, but that’s assuming we are supposed to believe that the Tralfamadorians are real and not just in his imagination. I think they’re imaginary, but I like their concept of time. Billy writes to the newspaper, explaining:

“. . . an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever.

When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So it goes.'"

I’ll put a personal note behind a spoiler, since this is so long already.
I grew up in America, and I’ve been familiar with the title of this book since it was written. I know it is studied in schools, but I never knew anything about it. We had a German exchange student years ago (in Australia), and she was very politically savvy and aware. She lived near the East German border and was so excited that the Berlin Wall had just come down. But one of the first things I remember her saying to me was something about Dresden and shaking her head.

I don’t recall what it was, just that it was a terrible thing, and I think she expected me to apologise or something, but I imagine I fell back on the usual “It was necessary to end the war”, or some similarly trite excuse. Truth be told, I knew absolutely nothing about Dresden except it was the home of Dresden china/porcelain. I was far more ignorant of history than she was. And I was, and am still, ashamed.

Oh, Vonnegut, you clever bastard. How did you construct a novel with such a complex plot, such recondite themes and tremendous artistry, using such simple prose? Time collapses and unfolds, the reader gets endings before beginnings, the message is fateful and looming, and the vocabulary level is appropriate for middle schoolers. You got to love a writer who can do that.

Vonnegut understands the nature of comedy like few others. Comedy is just tragedy from a distance, tragedy from a certain perspective. The novel sparkles with humor, and the reader is left with a pit in his stomach. A gnawing, gaping feeling that clutches your insides, and spreads through your mind like a weed. And here I just wanted a quick laugh.

“How nice — to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”

Slaughterhouse-Five is about Billy Pilgrim’s survival of the firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner-of-war during World War II and is often cited as one of the most enduring anti-war novels of all time.

Let me be real here - it’s times like these that I am so thankful for bookstagram. Never in my life would I have picked up this book if it wasn’t for this platform... and I am so incredibly glad I did as it surprised me in the BEST way possible.

You think this book is about one thing... and then it kinda goes down a different path that I did NOT see coming and all of a sudden there’s science fiction thrown into the mix?! Whaaaat! Yet it works SO WELL. These may even have been my favourite parts of the book!

The narrative is non-linear as we jump back and forth in time and yet it doesn’t feel disjointed in the slightest. There’s a lot of repetition as well, which again, doesn’t bother me, because Vonnegut just executes it all so seamlessly and effectively. A lot of it is just downright absurd and crazy, but if I’ve said it once I’ll say it a million times... it just works!!

I simply adored so many of the messages in this book, whether it was the anti-war stance, the commentaries on life and death, or just the fact it makes you stop and think. And it’s so goddamn funny.

There are so many books that I’ve read during my 30 before 30 challenge that I’ve thought “well, once was enough! I shan’t see you again...” but I will definitely revisit this at some point. It’s got a hold on me.

So it goes...

4.5 stars.

My impression of the writing was one of coquetry: the author flirting with language and with structure. I had the feeling this story was an exercise in creative writing, which lacked an engaging, moving narrative.
It didn't work for me. I felt mostly bored and detached reading this book, especially during the Tralfamadorian portions.
I don't believe for one moment this is one of the world's greatest anti-war books ; I couldn't care less what happened in Billy Pilgrim's world.
The author couldn't be more right when he wrote at the end of chapter 1: "This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt."

3/10

A disturbingly comedic (or comically disturbing?) satire of the inevitability of war, the age old fate vs. free will argument, and the gross desensitization of death, Slaughterhouse-Five analyzes the effects of the Bombing of Dresden on World War II veteran Billy Pilgrim. Told in a nonlinear narrative that is common for Vonnegut, this novel employs the rare literary device I like to call “Twilight Zone–ish extraterrestrialism,” which serves to highlight both the absurdity of free will as well as Pilgrim’s sense of temporal confusion resulting from his experiences with war. So it goes.