Just Finished Reading Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut's 1969 science-fiction/war/historical/semi-autobiographical masterpiece, quickly made its way to high school English classes where it was often an assigned book...but not in any of mine.  It was years before I experienced it, albeit not in book form but through the excellent 1972 movie...which I've seen a couple of times.  I finally decided to read the book...something I almost never do if I first see the film version...to see how Vonnegut went about spinning this compelling yarn.  I wasn't disappointed...

Soon after arriving in Europe in late 1944 as a chaplain's assistant, American private Billy Pilgrim is captured during the German offensive in the Battle of the Bulge.  Just before he is taken prisoner, though, he becomes "unstuck in time" and begins to jump back and forth to different parts of his life.  Before long he knows not only what happens to many of the people he has (or eventually will) come to know, but also becomes keenly aware exactly how and when he will die. Billy will survive World War II, but not before he is taken with other American POWs to Dresden, Germany and witnesses the annihilation of that supposedly nonmilitary, historic city...along with 137,000 inhabitants...one night by British bombers.  He returns home after the war and becomes an optometrist, marrying into a wealthy family and enjoying material success.  Tragedies do occur, though, and Billy already knows of them even while still in the war due to his time-jumping.  He also knows he will be abducted by a distant alien race called the Tralfamadorians to be a zoo exhibit.  It is these entities who educate Billy about the true nature of time, life, and death: everything that ever happened (or will happen) and everyone who ever lived (or ever will live) is in a real sense always happening and living.  Because of his own time traveling experiences, Billy understands this and regards mortality in a much different light than do others...remarking upon any reference to death with the words "and so it goes"...

Kurt Vonnegut actually did get captured during the Battle of the Bulge and taken to Dresden, where he survived the devastating raid of that city by virtue of being in a heavily fortified underground room beneath a former slaughterhouse for pigs...hence the name Slaughterhouse Five, or in German, Schlachthof Fünf.  In the book he briefly appears as a peripheral character... also included in the story is the fictional novelist Kilgore Trout, who resurfaces in other books of Vonnegut's...

The two main themes as I saw them in Slaughterhouse-Five were the horrors of the Dresden bombing...and war in general...and the nature of time as it relates to life and mortality.  Kurt Vonnegut's writing style was clear and very reader-friendly, in spite of the potentially confusing time travels of Billy Pilgrim within his own lifetime.  If you're into metaphysics, then this is a must-read.  The only thing I regret about this book is not having read it earlier...