I should know better. I very foolishly checked Slaughterhouse Five out of the library and brought it to read on our camping trip even though I suspected I wasn’t going to like it and I knew the person who recommended it to me was going to be on our camping trip wanting me to like it. I read books when I’m given them, and when I don’t like them, I’m likely to say “I liked [specific thing],” or “It’s very well-written!”, rather than lying straight out with something like “Yes! I liked it!”, and I had planned exactly what I was going to say when asked about it. Only after I’d said all my evasive remarks, my sister said, “Did you like it?” and I felt too guilty to say no so I said yes but it was a tangled web of lies and if I’d had a second to think about it I’d have said something vague and noncommittal like I liked some things about it but I’d have to read it again to make up my mind completely.
Which wouldn’t exactly have been true either. I have this blurry notion that lies are less wicked if they involve a lot of words and incorporate some elements of the truth. Dear oh dear. I feel sad when I don’t like other people’s favorite books, because I know how sad it makes me when other people don’t like my favorite books.
ANYWAY, Slaughterhouse Five is Kurt Vonnegut’s Masterwork, an anti-war novel that features the Tralfamadorians of whom I have heard (in my parapsychology class – I missed the final on account of writing down the date wrong, and our Vonnegut-loving professor was kind enough to let me take it the next day without penalizing me), and discusses the bombing of Dresden. The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, is a soldier who becomes “unstuck in time”, traveling back and forth between moments of his life – times with his wife and children, his childhood, his time as a soldier in the Second World War, his kidnapping by aliens in a flying saucer, etc.
It was clever. I think that’s what I’d say about this book. The business of being unstuck in time was interesting, and I wondered if that’s where Audrey Niffenegger got the idea for The Time Traveler’s Wife (hope so – it always cheers me up to see other authors stealing ideas because it makes me feel better about myself). It was clever, but there was nothing underneath it. All this weak-jawed fatalism – it was quotable (the phrase “So it goes” occurs whenever something bad happens), but it didn’t lead to anything. Not for the characters, and not for me either. It was clever, but there wasn’t anything underneath the cleverness. It was just a lot of words.
I meant to give it two stars, but I like the book less and less the more I think of it. I have very few one-star ratings, because I feel guilty being mean about books that I know other people love. But it’s a new year and I’m going to be bloody, bold, and resolute (Macbeth is my favorite of Shakespeare’s tragedies. When I quote that bit of it, though, I’m quoting Eliza from Knight’s Castle. You can’t ever escape your childhood reading.) with my ratings. One star it is!
What do you like or not like about Vonnegut? Am I missing something vital about this book? Anyone want to claim that Slaughterhouse Five is overrated and the real Vonnegut is only to be found through [one of his other books]? I’m willing to try again…
If you haven’t read Vonnegut, don’t take my word for it; I know loads of people love him. Other reviews of Slaughterhouse Five: things mean a lot, Becky’s Book Reviews, Just a (Reading) Fool, Rob Around Books, booklit, Bibliofreakblog, Rose City Reader, and you’ll tell me, won’t you, if I missed yours?