Slaughterhouse Five

Slaughterhouse Five -or- The Children's Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut (Laurel) ISBN: 0-440-18029-5

Plot Summary

Billy Pilgrim survives the firebombing of Dresden in World War II.  After being kidnapped by Tralfamadorians -- aliens who look like plungers with a hand at the top of the handle and eye in the middle of the palm -- Billy becomes unstuck in time.  Throughout the novel he bounces around between his work as an optometrist, his marriage, the marriage of his daughter, his time in a Tralfamdore Zoo, his own death, time in a hospital after a plane crash, and Dresden.  He also reads several books by (and eventually meets) the science fiction writer Kilgore Trout.  Indeed many of the adventures that Billy Pilgrim have bear an odd resemblance to Trout's work.

Critical Evaluation

Slaughterhouse Five is a very unusual book.  It opens and closes with a narrator talking about his experiences attempting to write a book about Dresden, and in the intervening pages we see Billy Pilgrim flitting about from moment to moment of his life.  While we might expect such a journey to be constantly informed by Billy's war experience (more people died in the Dresden firebombing than at Hiroshima), this only seems to partially inform later events.  He tells stories about the man he saw executed for stealing a teapot, and Weary who blamed his death on Billy, and Lazarro who vowed to avenge Weary's death (and, in a particularly unusual scene, carries out his promise.  The scene is set in 1976 in an American divided into several countries; it's the one moment in the book where Billy's ability to predict what will happen based upon his condition of being unstuck in time can be questioned.  While the book was written in 1969, it seems highly unlikely that Vonnegut really believed that the U.S. would be so divided in only 7 years.  So, this moment stands out -- we can call into question Billy's sanity more so than at any other time, and we have to ask if our narrator is reliable or not).  The overall effect interestingly, is that we see Billy in much the way Trafalmadorians might as a figure alive in some moments and dead in others.  The book presents a kind of character sketch as symbol of the absurdity of war.  And even this commentary is subtle.  Billy himself believes that it was necessary to bomb Dresden and pities the pilots who had to do it.  Like everything else in the novel, his views are ambiguous.

Reader’s Annotation

Billy Pilgrim experiences his life by jumping into different moments in time; he lingers long on the Dresden fire bombings by the U.S. in World War II.

Information about the author

From the author's official website:

Most readers interested in the fantastic in literature are familiar with Kurt Vonnegut, particularly for his uses of science fiction. Many of his early short stories were wholly in the science fiction mode, and while its degree has varied, science fiction has never lost its place in his novels.
 
Vonnegut has typically used science fiction to characterize the world and the nature of existence as he experiences them. His chaotic fictional universe abounds in wonder, coincidence, randomness and irrationality. Science fiction helps lend form to the presentation of this world view without imposing a falsifying causality upon it. In his vision, the fantastic offers perception into the quotidian, rather than escape from it. Science fiction is also technically useful, he has said, in providing a distance perspective, "moving the camera out into space," as it were. And unusually for this form, Vonnegut's science fiction is frequently comic, not just in the "black humor" mode with which he has been tagged so often, but in being simply funny. (Reed, 1999).

Genre

Classic/Adult Crossover/War/Science Fiction

Curriculum Ties

The book would be ideal in an English course or in a class on World War II or Vietnam -- it discusses both wars, and does so in a manner that is questioning but not so clearly critical.  In other words, it forces the reader to engage with the ideas and decide what they mean.  The book has also been approved by the California Department of Education as part of their database of Recommended Literature, where it is suggested for use in history and social science courses. 

Booktalking Ideas

1.  Focus on the humor.

2. Discuss the interaction of historical account and science fiction.

Reading Level/Interest Age

9th grade and up.

Challenge Issues

Violence, Sex, Language, Alcohol use.

I would openly greet any patron who presented a challenge to the work, giving them ample time to detail their complaint.  I would listen attentively.  To respond to these challenges I would have some reviews of the work on hand.   I would be prepared to explain that as a public institution libraries "cannot limit access on the basis of age or other characteristics" (ALA, 1999).  I would have copies of the library's collection policy on hand.  I would be prepared to politely discuss that parents can control what their children are exposed to by coming to the library with them and examining books they check out.  If the Teen Advisory Group had written reviews of the work I'd have them handy.  While it may be of little comfort to certain parents, I would also be prepared to discuss my staunch support of intellectual freedom and abhorrence of censorship.  As a last resort, I would be sure to keep copies or a reconsideration form on hand.

I would also discuss this book's inclusion in the California Department of Education's list of Recommended Literature.

Why did you include this book in the titles you selected?

I originally read the book when I was 16, and was trying to think back to titles that I'd enjoyed as a teen that I thought teens might still enjoy.

References

American Library Association. (1999). Strategies and tips for dealing with challenges to library materials. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/challengeslibrarymaterials/copingwithchallenges/strategiestips 


Reed, P. (1999).  Kurt Vonnegut's Fantastic Faces. Retrieved from www.vonnegut.com/artist.asp