Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
“Written by a man who survived the firebombing of Dresden — and spent 23 years trying to find words for it. He finally decided the only honest response was: 'So it goes.'”
At a Glance
Billy Pilgrim, a hapless American POW, survives the Allied firebombing of Dresden in 1945 by hiding in an underground meat locker. He also time-travels uncontrollably through his own life, is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, and learns that all moments exist simultaneously and free will is an illusion. Vonnegut frames all of this in an autobiographical first chapter in which he, the author, confesses he cannot write about Dresden — and then writes about it anyway.
Read full summary →Why This Book Matters
Published in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War, Slaughterhouse-Five became the defining anti-war novel of the twentieth century. It was radical in its refusal to make war heroic, its use of science fiction to carry philosophical content, and its insistence on the civilian cost of aerial bombardment. It made the Best Novels of the Century lists of Time and Modern Library. It sells over a million copies a year.
Diction Profile
Deliberately childlike — short sentences, simple vocabulary, flat affect. Vonnegut's prose is the literary equivalent of a poker face.
Low by conventional measure