Book Review

So after finishing Slaughter House-Five, I have to say I really enjoyed reading this book. There are so many reasons why I liked this book. I guess my first reason I liked this book was I guess the fluidity while reading it. At first I thought that I would be totally confused because of the science fiction aspect of time travel, however Vonnegut uses time travel to his advantage to jump from each part of the story that Vonnegut feels is related in some way.

I guess the aspect of time travel leads me to my second reason of why I enjoyed this book. I was surprised that an author would be able to make sense of a a historical sci-fi book. The introduction of the Tralfamadores brings up many points that I think Vonnegut wanted to share. "The Tralfamadorians...can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them." What I take from this is moments like death are just bad experiences and that there will always be war, we cant stop it.

I enjoyed how this is a anti-war story that does not really focus that much on the war. What we do see are the spilling of emotions as we see the wreckage of Dresden, the poor horse, and imagine the taste of syrup that brought so much joy to the old man. This small book contains so much information filled with so much knowledge and emotions. As my first time reading this book I definitely did not notice all of the finer points, however I definitely enjoyed reading this book.

Historical Sci-Fi?

Never would I have thought that I would take a historical sci-fi book seriously. Slaughter House-Five changed my idea about this. Science fiction plays a huge role in the book. I believe that Vonnegut uses sci-fi in order to alleviate the total seriousness of war. An example from the book that I believe supports this argument is the story written by Trout. The Gutless Wonder tells the story about a robot who would use burning jellied gasoline on humans, but the only things the humans cared about were its bad breath. I think that Vonnegut uses this example of sci-fi to show how ignorant some people are about war. The use of the Tralfamadore helped allow me to see war in a different light. I believe that Vonnegut takes advantage of using aliens to convey the important points of how war is silly, yet inevitable. As an author writing about the dreadful nature of Dresden, I believe Vonnegut also uses sci-fi in his writing as a means to escape the harsh reality of having to relive the war while writing the book. Even though the idea of using sci-fi in a historical fiction book seems quite far-fetched and silly, Vonnegut cleverly combines the two aspects of what is real and what isn’t into a believable story that changes my ideas on war.