|  | | | Customer Reviews: | | | Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
 Runs out of Steam Nov 15, 2009
While Slaughterhouse Five has a very engaging plotline, an interesting writing style, and a host of creative characters, the story noticeably runs out of steam about half of the way through. I hold Kurt Vonnegut in high regard, and have thoroughly enjoyed many of his other works, such as Welcome to the Monkey House and Man Without a Country, but this book just didn't impress me. The author's occasional unexplained shift of venue to a moment totally unrelated was a major annoyance to me. The first half, however, is an enjoyable read. I would recommend borrowing the book from the library rather than paying money for it, but others might find it more engaging than I did.
 Brilliant Nov 01, 2009
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. There's not a lot more I can say without writing a book myself. Funny and sad at the same time. Original. I look forward to reading more Vonnegut.
A nice edition of a literary classic Oct 25, 2009
What can I say? One of the seminal works of the 20th century in a nice, affordable edition.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Reality and Unreality Oct 25, 2009
If you want to have your mind pulled to the limits of reality and unreality with no explanation allowed then pick up this book. It's hard enough reading a book on a beach which is what I did with this and, of course, Vonnegut made it as difficult as possible for me to get my mind around every little detail he presents.
As usual, he is not writing a story. More of a critique and a heavy satire on the world surrounding us. Unlike Cat's Cradle which seems to be a much easier read, Vonnegut really pushes his skills to a level that even he knows he oversteps. It does not make this any less of an exciting, thrilling and captivating book.
With his repeated phrase of 'So it goes' and the main character's repetition of events in his mind creates a whirlwind, a cacophony of thought that is all at once quite human and flawed.
It had to be done Oct 24, 2009
Slush entombs his feet / Billy Pilgrim driven mad / It had to be done
I recently replaced a lost copy of Slaughterhouse Five, gave it a quick read, and wondered what all the fuss was about. It didn't have the same punch that it had when I first read it nearly 40 years ago. Then I gave it a close read, and another and found things that weren't there, for me, even that first time long ago.
The central structural feature of S5 is the time travel of Billy Pilgrim and, given its importance, it's puzzling how readers remember the details so differently. Billy first encounters the 'time window' when escaping from the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge, in Luxembourg. He was 'bleakly ready for death' and stopped to lean against a tree to await his fate. He could not escape by going forward, going backward, or remaining still. He was in a double bind as R.D. Laing has described and his only escape was through time, his madness the 'perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.' Vonnegut describes Billy in this moment as 'like a poet in the Parthenon.'
The poet reference puts me in mind of John Keats, also called a poet in the Parthenon, writing his 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' after viewing the Elgin Marbles taken from the Parthenon. The vignettes of Billy's time travels are much like the verses of the Ode, much like the sculptures from the Parthenon. Vonnegut's Tralfamadorians 'can look at all the different moments [of time] just as we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains . . . can look at any moment that interests them.' Just as Keats could look at all the moments captured in the marble frieze.
One moment, or verse, that is particularly apt is this: 'Who are these coming to the sacrifice? / . . . What little town by river or seashore / . . . Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? / And, little town, thy streets for evermore / Will silent be; and not a soul to tell / Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.' An eyewitness, thinking back to Dresden on the Elbe, might very well dwell on this verse, on this urn.
'It had to be done.' Not because the Tralfamadorians say so, but because that's who we are. Billy Pilgrim survives the war, sires a son who goes off to his own war. Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Vietnam. If not war, 'there would still be plain old death,' the human condition, from which there is no escape. As Camus would have it, 'But the point is to live' and 'Live to the point of tears.'
|
| |
|
![Up (4 Disc Combo Pack with Digital Copy and DVD) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51V%2Beipy8-L._SL75_.jpg "Up (4 Disc Combo Pack with Digital Copy and DVD) [Blu-ray]")
![Across the Universe [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51T24FuHPEL._SL75_.jpg "Across the Universe [Blu-ray]")
![Underworld Trilogy (Underworld / Underworld: Evolution / Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51F27VzUl%2BL._SL75_.jpg "Underworld Trilogy (Underworld / Underworld: Evolution / Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) [Blu-ray]")
![Shakira: Oral Fixation Tour [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RQUEopdlL._SL75_.jpg "Shakira: Oral Fixation Tour [Blu-ray]")
