Review: Slaughterhouse-Five - first war novel of 2010
Week 26: (23) Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut (3.5/5)
“I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.” Well…. that makes two of us. Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical anti-war novel Slaughterhouse Five centers around the WWII 1945 firebombing of Dresden and follows the journey of Billy Pilgrim, an American soldier that is captured and kept as a POW in Germany, and who witnesses the atrocious aftermath of the Dresden bombing.
What was most drawing about this book was the way Vonnegut was able to approach the topics of war and suffering in a comedic and engaging manner, without sacrificing the seriousness of either. The book was funny, but not light-hearted. I liked it a lot considering that it was a war book, and after reading this, definitely wouldn’t mind picking up another Vonnegut novel. (Especially if I was mid-way through “Swann’s Way” again…)
