I just finished re-reading Kurt Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse Five, and again am amazed by it. Overarching-ly, it is about the Burning of Dresden in WWII, but it entails so much more than that, and yet it is hard to describe it all. There are aliens, a proof that free will is incorrect, and many other humorous things, and yet most of them you can't laugh at. This book is the definition of black humor. He somehow managed to link aliens that look like plungers with a glove on them with one of the worst days in WWII, when over 100,000 innocent civilians were fire-bombed to death. It sounds impossible, and yet he managed to do it in a way that doesn't downplay what happened on that day, it doesn't glorify war in any possible way, and yet it is still one of the best war-novels I have ever read.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Slaughterhouse Five
I just finished re-reading Kurt Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse Five, and again am amazed by it. Overarching-ly, it is about the Burning of Dresden in WWII, but it entails so much more than that, and yet it is hard to describe it all. There are aliens, a proof that free will is incorrect, and many other humorous things, and yet most of them you can't laugh at. This book is the definition of black humor. He somehow managed to link aliens that look like plungers with a glove on them with one of the worst days in WWII, when over 100,000 innocent civilians were fire-bombed to death. It sounds impossible, and yet he managed to do it in a way that doesn't downplay what happened on that day, it doesn't glorify war in any possible way, and yet it is still one of the best war-novels I have ever read.
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