It introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man unstuck in time
after he is abducted by Tralfamadorian aliens. In the book, the chronological
order of events (the fabula) is
manipulated, giving the reader a scrambled plot. This leads us to follow Billy
through several events simultaneously, with the emphasis on his experience in
World War Two: more specifically, the firebombing of Dresden and his experience
as an American prisoner of war. In Vonnegut’s flexible concept of time, Billy
could be dying in one paragraph and being born in the next; the events are so
scrambled and each character is so humorous in the jumbled plot that the book
is very enjoyable and deeply resonant.
Vonnegut writes:
There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.
There are no characters in the story because the event is
what is important. The only reason we have Billy Pilgrim and other characters
is because we, as readers, require the story to be populated to engage closely
and comfortably with the jumbled series of events.
His style is, in my view, indescribably rare. There are, of
course, elements that we can link to other books. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in World War Two
into an eloquent, amusing protest against butchery in the service of authority.
There are also traces that are analogous to another one of my favourite books, Birdsong, although Faulks does not
engage in the comedy so willingly. The book boasts unique structure and
uproarious antics, but its core in cold, hard, tragic fact gives it a potency
that would make anyone think twice about the outrageous laugh about to burst
from their lungs.
It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like “Poo-tee-weet?
Vonnegut attempts to write about the unspeakable horrors of
war. However, he suggests that you cannot: the mind, when trying to draw on
these horrors, will again suppress them and be diverted to other moments in
life which are insignificant, simpler and easier to deal with. One cannot write
about something that it is senseless, and Vonnegut suggests that Dresden and
other similar bombings in history (such as Hiroshima, which he mentions) are
indeed stupid and senseless. The madness of mankind permeates his novel.
Vonnegut’s short novel admits from the start that trying to
tackle great questions about war and death is futile. Do not expect to find
such an exploration of big themes, as you will be disappointed. However, it is
through what he does not say that adds to the novel’s magic. You may perhaps
achieve a better understanding, or at least a humbling exploration, of these
key themes through Slaughterhouse 5’s
triviality, which only hints at these issues in a comic, subtle way. These
subtleties resonate in the mind like ripples on a lake, forcing us to question
the Dresden bombing, and through that, larger themes. For example, we should pay more attention to
the apparently insignificant birdsong ‘poo-tee-weet?’ Because, as Vonnegut
leads us to believe, this birdsong makes more sense in Slaughterhouse 5 than the unspeakable bloody horrors created by humans.
I’ve finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun.This one’s a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt.
So it goes.
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