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Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse 5, or The Children's Crusade - A Duty-dance with Death Paperback – 21 Mar. 1991

by Kurt Vonnegut (Author)

2,281 ratings

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Read Kurt Vonnegut's powerful masterpiece, which is as timely now as when it was first published.

‘An extraordinary success. A book to read and reread. He is a true artist’ New York Times Book Review

Billy Pilgrim – hapless barber's assistant, successful optometrist, alien abductee, senile widower and soldier – has become unstuck in time. Hiding in the basement of a slaughterhouse in Dresden, with the city and its inhabitants burning above him, he finds himself a survivor of one of the most deadly and destructive battles of the Second World War. But when, exactly? How did he get here? And how does he get out?

Travel through time and space on the shoulders of Vonnegut himself. This is a book about war. Listen to what he has to say: it is of the utmost urgency.

‘The great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.’ George Saunders

Print length

192 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Vintage Classics
Publication date

21 Mar. 1991
Dimensions

12.9 x 1.2 x 19.8 cm
ISBN-10

0099800209
ISBN-13

978-0099800200
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Product description

Amazon Review

It took Vonnegut more than 20 years to put his Dresden experiences into words. He explained, "there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again." Slaughterhouse Five is a powerful novel incorporating a number of genres. Only those who have fought in wars can say whether it represents the experience well. However, what the novel does do is invite the reader to look at the absurdity of war. Human versus human, hedonist politicians pressing buttons and ordering millions to their deaths all for ideologies many cannot even comprehend. Flicking between the US, 1940's Germany and Tralfamadore, Vonnegut's semi- autobiographical protagonist Billy Pilgrim finds himself very lost. One minute he is being viewed as a specimen in a Tralfamadorian Zoo, the next he is wandering a post-apocalyptic city looking for corpses. Slaughterhouse Five-Or The Children's Crusade A Duty-Dance with Death is a remarkable blend of black humour, irony, the truth and the absurd. The author regards his work a "failure", millions of readers do not. Released the same time bombs were falling on South East Asia, this title caused controversy and awakening. Essential reading for all. So it goes. --Jon Smith

Review

Marvellous...the writing is pungent, the antics uproarious, the humour suitably black, the wit sharp as a hypodermic ― Daily Telegraph

Mr Vonnegut knows a great deal about what is probably the largest massacre in modern history - the fire-bombing of Dresden in 1945. Slaughterhouse Five is a reaction to the event by one of our most gifted and incisive novelists. A work of keen literary artistry -- Joseph Heller, author of 'Catch-22'

The individuality of Vonnegut's style is a curious yet perfect match for the pain of the emotional content. A humane, human book that always remains a work of art rather than biography, no matter how apparent the author's presence -- Kate Atkinson

Unique...one of the writers who map our landscapes for us, who give names to the places we know best -- Doris Lessing

There are writers who create a lot of readers, and there are writers who create a lot of writers, and Vonnegut was both -- Jonathan Safran Foer

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage Classics; 1st edition (21 Mar. 1991)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0099800209
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0099800200
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.9 x 1.2 x 19.8 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 2,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 11 in Metaphysical & Visionary
- 21 in Parodies (Books)
- 22 in Time Travel

Customer reviews:
2,281 ratings

About the author

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Kurt Vonnegut

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Kurt Vonnegut was a writer, lecturer and painter. He was born in Indianapolis in 1922 and studied biochemistry at Cornell University. During WWII, as a prisoner of war in Germany, he witnessed the destruction of Dresden by Allied bombers, an experience which inspired Slaughterhouse Five. First published in 1950, he went on to write fourteen novels, four plays, and three short story collections, in addition to countless works of short fiction and nonfiction. He died in 2007.

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5 star		61%
4 star		21%
3 star		12%
2 star		3%
1 star		2%

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CottonPickinVarmint

A really tough read.. classic? If you say so. .

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 August 2021

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This took me ages to finish, considering it's a mere 176 pages long. Having heard what a classic it was for literally decades and never got round to reading it, I finally bit the bullet, so to speak. At the end of the book I was really left none the wiser. War is terrible and some people are good and some are bad and some are in charge and some are helpless passengers and most things are inconsequential. Yes, ... so what about it... tell us something we don't know.

The writing style and the time travelling schtick (without which, the book could have been half the length and lost none of its impact) I just found irritating/baffling to the point where, having put it down, I really didn't want to pick it up again... but for the sake of finishing the book I did.

If I ever see the words "Billy Pilgrim" in print again, I may just scream. It seems to me that it's a classic because it's been used so widely as a school study book which maybe gives people some sort of rose tinted view. I'm glad we didn't read it at our school (though we were subjected to the dreary old Steinbeck classics which, themselves, weren't a bundle of laughs).

By all means give it a go... you may find yourself in the majority (by definition you probably will!) but it's not something I'd ever want to pick up again... not because of the message but because of the plodding prose.

12 people found this helpful

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An anti-war testament - a must read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 October 2020

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I felt compelled to revisit Vonnegut’s iconic anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse Five, for two reasons. Firstly, because from time to time (and our times are no exception) we all have to remind ourselves of the macabre of wars.
Vonnegut shows us the true colours of war. He dismantles all the naively romantic notions anyone may have about war, the unrealistic heroism and the false premise of winners and losers. I didn’t enjoy reading Slaughterhouse Five, but then it wasn’t written for anyone’s entertainment. It is stark, cruel and unforgiving. It is a warning. People die – good people, bad people, losers as well as conquerors, soldiers and civilians, youngsters and the elderly, dogs, horses, allies and enemies. No one is exempt. No one is immune. No one is above it. And so it goes. Vonnegut shows it in raw, ugly detail, and that detail is no fiction.
War and death equalise everyone. No nation is idealised and no nation is condemned in its collective totality. Faults and failings befall all. It is a brave concept not to idealise the winners. In fact, Vonnegut shows quite effectively that war destroys everyone and everything. Every construct of what’s right and wrong, good and bad, justifiable and inexcusable is absolutely false. The “victorious” Americans are bombed on par with German civilians in an “open” city of Dresden. The bombs don’t discriminate between “them” and “us”. It is all “us”. And this is the irony of it – wars are started because of divisions, but as they rage everyone pays the same price, feels the same pain and has only one life to lose.
My second reason was to explore the time-travel idea in the book. It is harrowing for Billy Pilgrim to go over and over again through his terrifying war experience. Time doesn’t work chronologically in this tale. The war never really ends. It remains present throughout Billy’s entire life. Events from his birth, childhood, wartime and his post-war civilian life are mingled together. The trauma he has lived through can never be consigned to the past. There is no past. There is no future. Time is not linear. Everything is happening simultaneously, all the time, and Billy jumps in and out of events while they carry on unfolding on an endless loop. Billy’s sojourn into the alien world of Tralfamadore is his brain’s way of coping with the scars left by the war on his psyche. Those who lived through war will never put it behind them. That message really hits home when you think of all those child refugees physically leaving war-affected areas but having to spend the rest of their lives trapped back there forever.
It is such a powerful idea. War is timeless. Once you have unleashed it, it will not end. Slaughterhouse Five should be a compulsory read for young people to digest before they enter adulthood in order to dispel their childhood “jolly-war” myths and shield them against glorification of war.

10 people found this helpful

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Carmilla

Surreal, absurd and twisted humour.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 July 2021

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It's clever. I can see why it's considered a classic. Poor Billy Pilgrim is the subject of a wide number of humiliations throughout the book inflicted by those who love, hate or are indifferent to him. He jumps from one place and time to another as he experiences his life as a child, in the war, and as a husband and father. I found it impossible to say for sure how much or how little of the narration was reliable. The narrative is fractured as is any semblance of chronology, but that's intentional and works well with the story. And certain phrases are repeated as if like a mantra that attempts to ground the narrator into the here and now or the then and there.

It's a philosophical book that considers how time might appear to beings who exist in four dimensions compared to our linear perception of time. It also asks what is real and what is not real - is it based on perception, or is it possible to point to any one objective reality? If you haven't read it and enjoy being confused, check it out.

6 people found this helpful

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John Plumridge

Good but Unexpected

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 December 2021

Verified Purchase

This book was a good read but was not what I expected. I thought it was going to be primarily about the authors experience of the bombing of Dresden but really this only makes up a small part of the book. What the book does is strip away any of the glamour of war and shows the individual suffering and soul destroying pointlessness of it. Billy Pilgrim the main character travels in time both backwards and forwards detailing his experiences including being held as a POW in Dresden when it was bombed at the end of WWII. According to the book 130,000 people were killed but in reality nobody knows the exact figure because the city was full of refugees who thought that Dresden was a safe haven. If you like a slightly surreal story with some black humour thrown in then I recommend this book. I've never read another book like it.

2 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Great book, poor quality control

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 December 2018

Verified Purchase

I love this book so I purchased it for my dad for christmas. When it arrived some of the pages were stuck together - the book had clearly been missed in quality control. This is so disappointing because I cant find a way to complain to the seller - I dont want to send the book back as it will be at my expense and effort, so I have just had to give it to my dad having taken a pair of scissors to it. It's only a small thing, but when you buy a book, at the very least you should be able to turn the pages -_-

10 people found this helpful

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