Slaughterhouse-Five

Ian Hamilton 4/30/08 Mr. Butz Humanities 10 Slaughter House-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. 1991. This story is about a man named Billy Pilgrim. Billy’s father dies shortly before Billy goes to war. Almost immediately German soldiers take Billy prisoner. He has to work in a camp for the Germans as a prisoner. After the Russians release him, he goes back home to marry a rich girl and live the American dream. The story jumps around a lot from different times in his life going back and forth. It is a memoir of a mad man driven mad from the being a part of the Nazi prisoner camp. The book takes place during World War Two. You read about his experience in battle and as a prisoner of the German army. It demonstrates what it was like to be in the war and a prisoner of war. It also shows what it was like to be veteran after the war. It connects to the story Night, because both of the main characters had to work in some kind of slave camp. The book is a thrilling adventurous book. I didn’t give away what happens after he gets home, but it gets intense and mangles your mind. It might have been a bit hard to read because it jumps around, but that adds to the interesting twists and turns of the novel. It is an action story with a bit of comedy. It also has a lot of tragedy. If you like a novel that is unpredictable and makes you think, you will love this book.

Review by Jocelyn Campino
5/12/08 Humanities 10 Ms. Gipson Wiki Independent Reading Project: Slaughterhouse- Five

Significant Quote: “’Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?… Well here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.’” (Vonnegut 76-77)

Premise: Billy Pilgrim has come “unstuck” in time. Over the course of the novel, he lives through moments during his childhood, his marriage, his mind-altering trip to the planet Tramalfadore, and the strange course of events that lead him to survive the firebombing of Dresden during WWII. Billy cannot control when he’ll make a jump from one place and time to another, and so from random jump to jump, pieces slowly fall together to illustrate his life. Ethical words of wisdom are clandestinely melded into his narration, and the reader finishes the story having read more than just another boring autobiography.

Connections: This is unlike any other World War II document we have studied or analyzed in class, because it is told so unbiasedly. It has no purpose for why it was written other than to tell a story, and so it doesn’t have to try and convince the readers of anything. World War II was a monumental historical event to be remembered for all time, but Billy Pilgrim just happened to be there. He was a chaplain’s assistant who accidentally walked his way into a group of American soldiers hiding in the forests from German fire, and was then taken as a POW through the jam-packed cattle cars, a considerably pleasant English/American POW camp, and then to do labor in one of the last beautiful cities of Germany: Dresden. He goes through all of this without complaints, and is more of an observer of the psychotic characters around him than anything else.

Evaluation: This book was definitely interesting, though I’m not sure I could say I enjoyed it. It was unlike anything else I’d ever read which was refreshing, but it was so scatter-brained it was really hard to follow. I would recommend it if someone wanted to challenge themselves, had too much time on their hands, or was looking for something a little unique to read. After finishing this book, I definitely felt a sense of accomplishment.

Audience: This novel is only for the patient and open-minded. It can’t be pinpointed into any specific genre, and so isn’t directed towards any one specific audience group; But because the ideas in the novel take so long to develop, I’d say only an older age group (anywhere between ages 18-80) would have the maturity and persistence to continue until the very last page before making any judgments on it, and would therefore enjoy it more. Also, because of the main character Billy Pilgrim’s complete lack of opinion or emotion on any of the events in the story, I would predict that males might like the book more than females. Though Slaughterhouse–Five is supposed to be college reading level and really challenging to read, I found it fairly self-explanatory. Billy says what he means, and doesn’t use many big words. All that is difficult about it is arranging the events in your mind somewhat chronologically so that they start to make sense. This is a “Tralmafadorian” novel – a depiction of a bunch of seemingly random events that when looked upon all at once turn into something beautiful that the mind can appreciate.

__Review by Cecilia Abate__ 5/13/08 Humanities 10 Ms. Willard Slaughterhouse Five; Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut is a choppy, partially truthful account of Vonnegut's experiences in Dresden during WW2. The main character is a man named Billy Pilgrim who gets "unstuck in time" and time travels throughout the majority of the book. He jumps from one event of the war to the next, not in any sort of sequential order. Vonnegut explains this concept early on: "It is so jumbled and jangled, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everyone is supposed to be dead, to never say or want anything ever again" (Vonnegut, 24.)

At a lot of points, it seems like what's going on has absolutely nothing to do with history, but it swerves back to the main topic gradually. Some of the events that Billy Pilgrim goes through are very much like Elie Wisel's experiences in Night, such as being put in cattle cars and staying in unsave havens.

Personally, I found it confusing, odd, and decently difficult to read. I believe there's a lot of symbolism, but I can't even be sure of that. I have a habit of skimming over whole paragraphs, and this is not a book you can do that with. Getting the 'gist' of a paragraph doesn't work, because of the choppy plot and the random happenings. There were parts that were ridiculously funny, though. It was almost worth the time to go through the book just for those parts, after I had read it once. There were a lot of phrases I liked, which tie into Kurt Vonnegut's definitive style of writing.

I would recommend this book to people who have patience and a decent sense of humor, who don't take things literally and to heart. Overall, it was an odd read, and if you're used to unconventional writing, then you might be able to stomach Kurt Vonnegut's style.

Review by sam silverstein
Slaughterhouse –Five By Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse-Five is a historical/science fiction novel about a man who served in WWII. Billy Pilgrim is studying to be an optometrist in Ilim, New York, when he is drafted into the army. Soon after, Billy’s father is killed and Billy is sent into battle in Germany. After only being in battle a short time, Billy is taken prisoner and sent to a POW camp. He is transported to Dresden, Germany, when the Allies bombed and destroyed the city. A few days later the Allies take the city and Billy is relieved of fighting. The war had made Billy very mentally unstable and from this point on, the author Kurt Vonnegut takes the reader through a wild trip of the illusion of death and free will.

This book only relates to WWII because of the time setting and the various characters’ involvement in the war. Some scenes in the book take place in Germany. The book night, which we read as a class takes part near some of the same places. After the war Billy has a lot of mental problems, which may have been caused from the trauma of fighting. We had learned about some mental problems soldiers had to live with u class and in free reading books. One of those books was called “All Quite On The Western Front”.

I thought the book was really good to read. It has great science fiction and mind trips. I enjoyed the way Kurt Vonnegut switches from place to place in Billy’s life. A neat thing was that Kurt Vonnegut was also a character in his own novel. He is not a major one but he has a few scenes.

This book would definitely appeal to readers who like action and Sci-Fi. Slaughterhouse-Five is a bit of a mind trip and makes you think about life. I thought it was a pretty easy book to read, although some parts you might have to stop and think about to fully understand what is going on.

Max Miller Humanities A block May 18, 2008 Ones life is not necessarily linear as we often reflect on past experiences to give us guidance through our future. Kurt Vonnegurts reflective time tipping novel, although based around factual events, gives us insight into the life of a soldier, before and after his experiences with war. Based on the author himself, Billy Pilgrim the protagonist is drafted to fight in Germany during WWII. He explains early in the novel his reasoning for the non-sequential order of events sighting the fact that the chaos during any war time situation can be detrimental to ones memory and account of events. After having just arrived in Germany, Pilgrim is captured and taken as P.O.W by German soldiers. From this point he recounts multiple moments of his life from his marriage, to his early childhood, and his encounter with extraterrestrials on the planet of Tramalfadore. These jumbled series of events leads to his ultimate survival in the Dresden firebombing, one that rivaled Hiroshima in terms of destruction and loss of life. This book, unlike others we have studied this year is more about the soldier’s individual experience, often not even directly relating to the war itself. The book is more based around the mental effects of war on ones consciousness than war itself. This quality relates it to Night in which we witnessed Elie Wiesel’s struggle, however Wiesel only briefly mentioned his re-assimilation into the normal world, where Vonnegurt greatly focuses on it. Another interesting point is that the story is told from an unbiased point of view in that Vonnegurt seems to disagree with war in general. Although hard to follow at times Vonnegurt’s style of writing seems to enthrall the reader as you familiarize yourself with the main character in all aspects of his life. For me this got me more involved in the book than I would have expected. I felt a personal connection with Pilgrim because by the end of the novel I had learnt so much about him. I also thought that how Vonnegurt could make what seemed like a non sequitur end up connecting to something else in the novel to be very interesting. I would recommend this book to any high school student studying WWII. I think that Vonnegurt’s skewed reality presents an interesting take on the conventional war story. His attitude and opinions towards the war greatly affect the style of the writing making the story that much more believable. The overall feel of the novel is very different than what one would expect from a war story, magnifying Vonnegurt’s talent and skill.

.:Reviewed by Julian Day:. Humanities 10 C/G Block “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. Billy has gone to sleep a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day. He has walked through a door in 1955 and come out another one in 1941. He has gone back through that door to find himself in 1963. He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and plays random visits to all the events in between. He says” (Vonnegut, Jr. 20). Slaughterhouse-Five is the story of a man named Billy Pilgrim who is a World War Two veteran who has an unusual ability that most normal humans don’t. During random moments Billy will become “unstuck in time” and travel to a different moment of his life in which he has no control of which specific time it is. The novel is all about Billy’s travels through World War Two and through time itself. The book gives a first hand account of what the war was like and what is was like to be a prisoner of war. The novel also gives a personal account of how the war affected soldiers psychologically. It shows how, no matter how long it has been since the war ended, soldiers constantly think about their time in the war and their experiences. Although it may be confusing to read at first because the novel is split up chronologically, Slaughterhouse-Five is a wonderful and entertaining book about World War Two and how time affects our lives. Reading the book was like eating a box of chocolates. This is because you never knew what part of Billy’s life you were going to experience next. And even though each section was about something completely different they were still somehow connected whether it was by the emotional state Billy was in or the physical sate. After reading the novel I have a much better understanding of what World War Two was like for American soldiers and how it affected their personal lives. The book is great for people who wish to learn about WWII whilst still being able to enjoy a novel that the reader can have a good time reading. The book is a Scientific/Realistic Fiction novel that is very entertaining and easy to read and get into. It is the perfect book for any high school student wishing to learn about WWII through a fun and interesting way.

//“Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.// //So it goes”// (Vonnegut 167).
 * REVIEWED BY JUSTINE McCULLUM**

This book is about an American man named Billy Pilgrim and his moments in the war. It is also about his moments after the war. Billy learns that life is not straightforward, but is actually a series of moments that one can switch between at anytime. He also learns that these moments do not change and will happen the way they happen and that there’s no point in trying to stop it. Billy learns these things when he is taken away by aliens who see time all at once. In this book we see how Billy experiences different parts of his life in no particular order.

In this book World War Two is shown as something that sucks the life out of anybody who is in it. WW2 took away children and broke them like twigs. According to this book it also made men go crazy. This is the same type of message that is shown in many WW1 books also.

Personally, I liked the book. It kept me interested and made good points in strange way. Because of the strange order of topics I would guess that it should have been difficult to read, but it was actually okay for me. The whole thing seemed like someone’s very vivid dream. When starting the book it was almost like reading the book backwards because many of the things that are talked about in the beginning also happen at the end.

Anybody who likes sci-fi would like this book, because the whole order of the book is blamed on aliens. If you are the type of person who likes it when things are straightforward and to the point, you would not like this book. Nothing in it is given completely straightaway. Also events are merged together a lot so the reader has to be able to keep up with everything and also be able to remember something from a previous chapter in order to understand something 3 chapters away that may have not been talked about at all in between. Basically the book is very confusing but if you are the type of person who likes reading about strange things then this book is for you.

__Reviewed by Marina Antonio__

 * "All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warning or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber" (Vonnegut 86).**

Kurt Vonnegut's //Slaughterhouse-Five// tells about the experiences of Billy Pilgrim, an American soldier who is taken hostage the the Germans during World War 2. As part of the other hastages, they all experience the firebombing in Dresden but only Billy and a few other are able to survive by staying in a meat locker. Not only does he describe his personal experience during World War 2, which gives the reader a sense of how the hostages in Dresden were treated, but as a result from his experience in the war, he also relives memories and mmoments of life before and after the war by travelying back and forth in time.

Billy Pilgrim's story takes place during World War 2 and he experiences the event of the firebombing in Dresden. His hostage situation is similar to the Jews' situation and what they faced with the Holocaust and how they were prisoners of the Germans. Also, Billy Pilgrim thinking how the Tralfamadorians exist reminds me that all soldiers are affected after experiencing the war.

In the beginning, the book was a little boring for me to read; I felt as though I was forced to read the book, that the only reason to read the book was to finish it. But as I confinued to read, the stories and memories of Billy Pilgrim got more interesting and I slowly began to enjoy the book. What made me want to read it more was how it wasn't just about one set story on what happened during the fire bombing in Dresden but he also goes back in time to his life before the war and how he is now. By telling about these three main portions of his life, it's slowly unveils and unravels his life and the reader gets a sense of who he was before. By compaing how he was before the war and how he is now, it shows you how badly affected soldiers are after the war. I like how it switches between different time periods in Billy Pilgrim's life from how in one paragraph it can switch from from telling a memory from when he was younger to going forward into time with the Tralfamadorians.

//Slaughterhouse-Five// by Kurt Vonnegut is a book that can be read by anyone. It has an interesting perspective of seeing Billy Pilgrim's life through time travel. It's amusing in a sense that involves aliens, the Tralfamadorians and how Billy believes in them, yet it's sad and shows how war has drastically affected him. Although maybe the beginning may be a little difficult to understand what's going on, I think this book can be enjoyed by anyone, especially those who are interested in World War 2 events that occured then.