Disjointed by Design? Review of Slaughterhouse Five

Finally got around to reading some Kurt Vonnegut, and figured I'd start with the classic Slaughterhouse Five.

It's a weird book, to be honest. Not necessarily in a bad way, but as much as Vonnegut explicitly states it's an anti-war piece, the rest of the book that isn't explicitly stating its purpose... doesn't really serve that purpose very well.

Instead of focusing on the Dresden Bombing, the book tells the story of one witness's life in an extremely nonlinear way, using the justification that Billy Pilgrim (that's our witness and protag) is "unstuck in time." Therefore, his consciousness (or, at least, the thread of it that we follow as readers) hops around his life, back and forth from childhood to elder years with merry abandon.

Funny thing is, we never really get outside confirmation that Billy's "unstuck-ness" is a real thing. Could be a hallucination from his trauma.

There are a lot of side plots that don't serve the overall message, in fact, they detract from it. There's a general theme of determinism in the book that makes "opposing" war a fruitless effort--nothing one does will change it. Another message, "focus on the good times" is the kind of meaningless pap that could be applied by the most downtrodden prisoner or the most vile tyrant or mass murderer.

We're left to believe the book is anti-war because Vonnegut says so, and not because the book supports this conclusion.

It didn't give me any new perspectives or arguments, neither logical nor rhetorical... to me, this makes it a failure at being anti-war.

Setting issues of message aside, the book is darkly imaginative, whimsical, flows well (mostly), and handles very disjointed situations well. One annoying bit is when Vonnegut decides to be suddenly vulgar or lurid or unsettlingly clinical. You'd think those moments, which catch a reader's attention, would serve his desired message, but no, they generally don't. They shock and pass.

Oddly, Vonnegut's description of the aftermath of the bombing of Dresden doesn't shock or scandalize.

The placement of the time-hops is usually between places and times that are subtly connected, which is a neat device that Vonnegut uses well.

It was a compelling read, in the sense that I could have gone through the whole thing in one sitting. At no point was I bored, and there was no point where I said, "this is a good stopping point for today."

The book reminds me a bit of Dr. Strangelove. It's absurdist and darkly humorous.

Vonnegut introduces one neat sci-fi idea: beings that live outside of time. But I wouldn't call it a sci-fi book; the sci-fi elements are not integral to the story or the theme or the operation of the world--all the alien stuff could be a hallucination of Billy's damaged brain.

There's no compelling or interesting or chilling "vision" of the future in the book, either.

It's "literary," probably an early example of what "literary" sci-fi publishers wanted, and the product of a talented and imaginative writer.

Just don't look to it for philosophical reasons to oppose war.