Slaughterhouse-Five: Or the Children's Crusade, a Duty-Dance with Death

by Vonnegut, Kurt
ISBN: 9780385333849
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Overview

A special fiftieth anniversary edition of Kurt Vonnegut's masterpiece, "a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century" (Time), featuring a new introduction by Kevin Powers, author of the National Book Award finalist The Yellow Birds

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber's son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming "unstuck in time."

An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut's writing--the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit--that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O'Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut's words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as "the kind of writer who made people--young people especially--want to write." George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be "the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves."

Fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut's portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era's uncertainties.

"Poignant and hilarious, threaded with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral statement."--The Boston Globe

  • Format: TradePaperback
  • Author: Vonnegut, Kurt
  • ISBN: 9780385333849
  • Condition: Used
  • Dimensions: 8.04 x 0.63
  • Number Of Pages: 288
  • Publication Year: 1999

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  • So it goes.

    Bryan H. - 2 years 6 months ago

    This deeply personal book is the most famous work by Kurt Vonnegut, and it certainly lives up to the hype. Following Billy Pilgrim, a man unstuck in time, through his experiences in World War 2 as well as his post-war life. This rare sort of book teaches you that things can be laugh-out-loud funny and incredibly sad at the same time. I believe that this is a book that everyone should read.

    HPB Staff Review

  • Not your weird, hippie aunt's anti-war novel

    Joe R. - 7 years 5 months ago

    You are unstuck in time. Your entire past, present, and future are set out before you like objects in a museum, occupying the same space at the same time forever. Whatever you do, remain calm, and you'll get through this. Billy Pilgrim - army veteran, former POW, optometrist, and former zoo attraction on an alien planet - knows that life well. Pilgrim joins World War 2 as a chaplain's assistant. He carries no weapons but is taken prisoner by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. Pilgrim is taken to Dresden, Germany and forced to pull bodies from the rubble after the allied bombing of the city. Billy is whisked around moments of his life. These moments are mostly humdrum, except for the time he spent on the alien planet Tralfamadore as a zoo exhibit. Pilgrim's journey through his life mirrors our journey through the novel. He is helpless against his time jumps and we are helpless to the jumps in narrative. So it goes. The novel is funny, sad, and ultimately profound and rewarding. Vonnegut's use of the "unstuck" plot device reconceptualizes our understanding of war and what comes after in an entirely new way.

    HPB Staff Review