Synopses & Reviews
Slaughterhous-Five is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.
Review
"Highly imaginative, nearly psychedelic....It is very tough and very funny; it is sad and delightful; it is very Vonnegut; and it works." The New York Times
Review
"Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. has written one of the major novels of the year....Haunting....Irresistible reading....Poignant and hilarious, threaded with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral statement." Boston Globe
Review
"Splendid art and simplicity....Nerve-racking control....A funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears, a tale told in a slaughterhouse." Life magazine
Synopsis
Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most.
Praise for Slaughterhouse-Five
"Poignant and hilarious, threaded with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral statement."--The Boston Globe
"Very tough and very funny . . . sad and delightful . . . very Vonnegut."--New York Times
"Splendid art . . . a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears."--Life
Synopsis
"A desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century."--Time Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time
Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Vonnegut describes as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he himself witnessed as an American POW. It combines science fiction, autobiography, humor, historical fiction, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber's son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. Billy, like Vonnegut, experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW, and, as with Vonnegut, it is the defining moment of his life. Unlike the author, he also experiences time travel, or coming "unstuck in time." Billy Pilgrim's odyssey reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we fear most.
Praise for Slaughterhouse-Five
"Poignant and hilarious, threaded with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral statement."--The Boston Globe
"Very tough and very funny . . . sad and delightful . . . very Vonnegut."--New York Times
"Splendid art . . . a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears."--Life
Synopsis
Slaughterhous-Five is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.
About the Author
Kurt Vonnegut was a master of contemporary American literature. His black humor, satiric voice, and incomparable imagination first captured America's attention in The Sirens of Titan in 1959 and established him as "a true artist" with Cat's Cradle in 1963. He was, as Graham Greene declared, "one of the best living American writers." Mr. Vonnegut passed away in April 2007.