Book Review of Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five
By Kurt Vonnegut

In Slaughterhouse Five we see the bombing of Dresden through the eyes of Billy Pilgrim, an American POW and therefore vicariously through the eyes of the author.  Vonnegut lived Slaughthouse-5 and took “writing what you know” to a new level. In the course of the story we get to see some old friends – Elliot Rosewater (“God Bless you Mr. Rosewater”),  Howard W. Campbell Jr the American ex-patriot turned Nazi propagandist (“Mother Night”), and Kilgore Trout, a relatively unknown Science Fiction writer and nom de plume for Vonnegut himself.  

Vonnegut uses his unique genre crossing style to present the horror of Dresden in a rather matter of fact manner while allowing Billy to become unstuck in time and take us on a wild ride through his life.  This includes a trip to Tralfamador, the planet where he is on display with former porn star Montana Wildhack in a Tralfamadorian zoo.  

Billy Pilgrim displays all the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  This condition, combined with all the Kilgore Trout novels he has read cause his malaise and the feeling he is unstuck – very similar to the Rosewater character, who in the book actually introduces Pilgrim to Trout’s novels. In fact both characters are misfit soldiers (as I believe Vonnegut may have been), are well meaning but slightly manic people, and experience traumatic episodes during the war – Rosewater kills a volunteer fireman mistaking him for a German solider and Billy witnesses the worst conflagration in World War two.  

The best advice in the book comes from the Tralfamadorians who advise Billy to forget the bad things and concentrate on the good things in his life.  This book is one of Kurt Vonnegut’s best novels, though all his books are worth reading, even Troutesque novels such as “Galapagos”. And so it goes.





Elliot Rosewater

Kilgore Trout