Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

To begin, Slaughterhouse 5 was, for me, a difficult book to understand. The first time I read it, I became too enraptured by the time travel and aliens to look intently at what the book was about.The second time through, I saw a conglomerate of details I had missed, but each one of them just caused me to like the book further. Though Slaughterhouse 5 ended up being a heavier topic book than I had originally thought I still enjoyed many of the components of the book such as the style, the important topics it brought light to, and the fact that it made me question a multitude of ideas.
Firstly, the intriguing style of the novel. In brief, Slaughterhouse 5 is essentially written as a book within a book. Firstly, it begins with Vonnegut’s recollection
To begin with, the purpose, as stated in the first chapter, was to write a book about Dresden. Personally, I had never previously known about this city existing much less that it was destroyed by allied troops. Through his writing, I was compelled to further research the topic. Therefore, I am glad that I was informed about a hidden atrocity. One would think that with two years of history classes from that era in time, we would have heard it mentioned at least once. That was partially his point; thousands of people died and nobody even talks about it. Nevertheless, he did not want to address the actual bombing as an event though, he more so wanted to show the effect it had on the soldiers. Slaughterhouse 5 is really anti-war sentiments based upon Dresden and its effect on Billy Pilgrim. The first way in which this is shown is the aforementioned flip-flopping plot. To clarify, this could be showing that he is imagining time travel and aliens as an unconscious coping mechanism for what he saw in the war. Secondly, the aliens introduce Billy to the concept of a set timeline in which nobody can do anything to change the things that arise. This is possibly Billy’s rationalization of how death in this moment means nothing. He never could have stopped it and that person is alive in many other moments. So it goes. Another reason I was excited about the concepts of time is that
If I am not being forced to look twice, think, or even question my own brain capacities while reading a book the author has done something wrong. Besides all of the details that I specifically thought were intriguing, Slaughterhouse 5 as a whole was entertaining to read. Whether I would recommend the book or not is a complicated matter though because many people I have talked to about it do not seem to enjoy it therefore, it seems to be a selective taste.However, I do believe that the book makes some important points that everyone should have the chance to