While Vonnegut identifies Cat's Cradle as his "flagship" (i.e. his favorite of his own books) it's no understatement to call Slaughterhouse-Five his masterpiece — when raking his own books against one another in 1981's Palm Sunday, those two are the only to receive a mark of A+ (though The Sirens of Titans, Mother Night, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Jailbird all get As). Certainly, it's one of his more formally-inventive novels, and one in which his use of science-fiction tropes and cutting-edge postmodern literary technique meld beautifully to produce a narrative that remains true to the horrors Vonnegut witnessed in Dresden as a POW during WWII.
Always a prolific and dedicated writer — God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, for example, came together in a little over a year — Slaughterhouse-Five posed a serious challenge to Vonnegut, who tried (and failed) for the better part of two decades, to find the right way to tell his Dresden story. This exchange from a composite interview (published by The Paris Review as part of their "Art of Fiction" series in 1977) outlines a very important shift in Vonnegut's approach that granted him the freedom to finish the manuscript (an important anecdote that's also contained in the book itself and gives it its subtitle):
Slaughterhouse-Five was made into a film in 1972 — an ambitious and faithful adaptation that pleased the author immensely: "I love [director] George Roy Hill and Universal Pictures, who made a flawless translation of my novel Slaughterhouse-Five to the silver screen ... I drool and cackle every time I watch that film, because it is so harmonious with what I felt when I wrote the book." If we can agree upon a day/time and I can reserve a room somewhere on campus, I'd be willing to screen the film for the class (if enough folks are willing to come out).
Always a prolific and dedicated writer — God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, for example, came together in a little over a year — Slaughterhouse-Five posed a serious challenge to Vonnegut, who tried (and failed) for the better part of two decades, to find the right way to tell his Dresden story. This exchange from a composite interview (published by The Paris Review as part of their "Art of Fiction" series in 1977) outlines a very important shift in Vonnegut's approach that granted him the freedom to finish the manuscript (an important anecdote that's also contained in the book itself and gives it its subtitle):
Later in the same interview, he speaks about Dresden in comparison to the Holocaust, and attempts (with a combination of survivor's guilt and his trademark black humor) to address the senseless scale of destruction and his place in relation to it:INTERVIEWERDid you intend to write about [Dresden] as soon as you went through the experience?
VONNEGUTWhen the city was demolished I had no idea of the scale of the thing . . . Whether this was what Bremen looked like or Hamburg, Coventry . . . I’d never seen Coventry, so I had no scale except for what I’d seen in movies. When I got home (I was a writer since I had been on the Cornell Sun, except that was the extent of my writing) I thought of writing my war story, too. All my friends were home; they’d had wonderful adventures, too. I went down to the newspaper office, the Indianapolis News, and looked to find out what they had about Dresden. There was an item about half an inch long, which said our planes had been over Dresden and two had been lost. And so I figured, well, this really was the most minor sort of detail in World War II. Others had so much more to write about. I remember envying Andy Rooney, who jumped into print at that time; I didn’t know him, but I think he was the first guy to publish his war story after the war; it was called Air Gunner. Hell, I never had any classy adventure like that. But every so often I would meet a European and we would be talking about the war and I would say I was in Dresden; he’d be astonished that I’d been there, and he’d always want to know more. Then a book by David Irving was published about Dresden, saying it was the largest massacre in European history. I said, By God, I saw something after all! I would try to write my war story, whether it was interesting or not, and try to make something out of it. I describe that process a little in the beginning of Slaughterhouse Five; I saw it as starring John Wayne and Frank Sinatra. Finally, a girl called Mary O’Hare, the wife of a friend of mine who’d been there with me, said, “You were just children then. It’s not fair to pretend that you were men like Wayne and Sinatra, and it’s not fair to future generations, because you’re going to make war look good.” That was a very important clue to me.
INTERVIEWERThat sort of shifted the whole focus . . .
VONNEGUTShe freed me to write about what infants we really were: seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. We were baby-faced, and as a prisoner of war I don’t think I had to shave very often. I don’t recall that that was a problem.
INTERVIEWERIt was the largest massacre in European history?
VONNEGUTIt was the fastest killing of large numbers of people—one hundred and thirty-five thousand people in a matter of hours. There were slower schemes for killing, of course.
INTERVIEWERThe death camps.
VONNEGUTYes—in which millions were eventually killed. Many people see the Dresden massacre as correct and quite minimal revenge for what had been done by the camps. Maybe so. As I say, I never argue that point. I do note in passing that the death penalty was applied to absolutely anybody who happened to be in the undefended city—babies, old people, the zoo animals, and thousands upon thousands of rabid Nazis, of course, and, among others, my best friend Bernard V. O’Hare and me. By all rights, O’Hare and I should have been part of the body count. The more bodies, the more correct the revenge.
INTERVIEWERThe Franklin Library is bringing out a deluxe edition of Slaughterhouse Five, I believe.
VONNEGUTYes. I was required to write a new introduction for it.
INTERVIEWER
Did you have any new thoughts?
VONNEGUT
I said that only one person on the entire planet benefited from the raid, which must have cost tens of millions of dollars. The raid didn’t shorten the war by half a second, didn’t weaken a German defense or attack anywhere, didn’t free a single person from a death camp. Only one person benefited—not two or five or ten. Just one.
INTERVIEWER
And who was that?
VONNEGUTMe. I got three dollars for each person killed. Imagine that.
Slaughterhouse-Five was made into a film in 1972 — an ambitious and faithful adaptation that pleased the author immensely: "I love [director] George Roy Hill and Universal Pictures, who made a flawless translation of my novel Slaughterhouse-Five to the silver screen ... I drool and cackle every time I watch that film, because it is so harmonious with what I felt when I wrote the book." If we can agree upon a day/time and I can reserve a room somewhere on campus, I'd be willing to screen the film for the class (if enough folks are willing to come out).
Here's our reading schedule for the next three classes:
- Tuesday, April 24: ch. 1 - 4
- Thursday, April 26: ch. 5 - 6
- Tuesday, May 1: ch. 7 - 10
As I mentioned last week, Slaughterhouse-Five is actually one of the shorter books that we'll be reading this term, however as it marks the halfway point of our quarter and a major milestone in Vonnegut's career, it'll also afford us the opportunity to look back over our past four books and regroup our thoughts before we move on to look at the latter phases of Vonnegut's writing.
Additionally, here are a few supplemental links for your enjoyment:
- The aforementioned (and highly-recommended) Paris Review "Art of Fiction" interview: [link]
- The New York Times' review of Slaughterhouse-Five: [link]
- Harlan Ellison's 1969 review of the book in The Los Angeles Times: [link]
- a 2007 NPR tribute to Vonnegut featuring the author reading an excerpt from Slaughterhouse-Five: [link]
- a 2003 NPR interview with Vonnegut about Slaughterhouse-Five: [link]
- Vonnegut's May 1945 letter to his family in Indianapolis from a Red Cross camp in France: [link]
- A 1949 letter of rejection from The Atlantic Monthly, to whom Vonnegut had sent two stories, along with an account of his experiences in Dresden: [link]
- Wikipedia entry on the Dresden bombing: [link]
- Vonnegut speaks in Chicago on the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima:
As the main protagonist, Billy is introduced, it is almost implied that he is mentally unstable. This continues the recurring theme of the definition of sanity. Just like Eliot, Billy is a war veteran who suffers from some form of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome and are somewhat supervised by their loved ones. It’s seems each novel so far as has touched on the horrors of war and the effect it has on returning soldiers. A lot of Vonnegut’s writing satirically questions the moral values of America’s leaders. Given the year of Slaughterhouse-Five’s release (1969), do you feel this novel was a way to speak out against the Vietnam Conflict?
ReplyDeleteIn Cat’s Cradle, Vonnegut openly poked fun at organized religion with Bokononism. Similarly, Slaughterhouse-Five focuses heavily fatalism and predestination. Do you think he is using the Tralfamadorians for the same “Tongue-in-Cheek” slant on religion? If so, how are the parodies in the two novels similar? Different?
-Bryan Shupe
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ReplyDelete1. As we see in Player Piano, Vonnegut greats a type of war of humans vs. machines and the engineers. Ultimately, at the end of Player Piano, many of the engineers went against the machines, which where supposed to be "on the same side as them." In Slaughterhouse-five, Vonnegut seems to bring this theme up again in a subtle way. After Weary and Billy get ditched by the other two in the group,Weary and Billy start fighting and are found by Five German soldiers. "But then Weary saw that he had an audience. Five German soldiers and a police dog on a leash were looking down into the bed of the creek. The soldiers' blue eyes were filled with a bleary civilian curiosity as to why one American would try to murder another one so far from home, and why the victim should laugh" (Page 51). How does Vonnegut connect these two books through the sense of betray, and war? Do you think this is Vonnegut's way of showing us how our actual lives are in past and present society?
ReplyDeleteJennifer Mitchell
2. In the beginning of this novel we are told many times, and given many examples of Billy being mentally unstable. (He even gets threats of being put into a home from his own daughter at age 44)Is it that Billy is actually insane or does Vonnegut's way of forming the story as a series of "time jumps" make Billy seem insane? Does the idea of Billy possibly being insane matter to the novel, in what ways?
ReplyDelete1.In chapter 5 of the novel Billy’s mother has a conversation with Rosewater. She explains how he prays every night that when she comes to visit Billy will uncover his head and say, “Hello mom.” and “Gee it’s good to see you mom. How have you been?” Rosewater in reply says, “That’s a good thing to do” followed by, “People would be surprised if they knew how much in this world was due to prayers” There was a since of sarcasm in his reply. Right after that Billy’s mothers asked does his mother come to visit him and he in reply tells her that she is dead. It appears that this shows Vonnegut’s disbelief in religion. It suggests the idea that there is no point in wasting your time praying for something because it bound to happen it will. How does this part of the novel express Vonnegut’s view about religion?
ReplyDeleteTaj McCall
2.In the novel, Billy suffers from PTSD and is presumed to be insane. Billy may not be insane at all, merely just trapped in his own mind reliving moments from his life while searching for new meaning. How does Vonnegut portray the ongoing struggle between reality and fiction related to the effects of PTSD through Billy in the novel?
ReplyDeleteThe narrator in Slaughterhouse Five is Kurt Vonnegut himself. In the first chapter we see Vonnegut writing in first person, including himself as a character in the narrative. There are also other places in the narrative where Vonnegut suddenly mentions himself in the story. For example when Vonnegut talks about Billy's experiences in the war, Vonnegut interrupts his narrative saying "I was there. So was my old war buddy, Bernard V. O'Hare" (p. 82). What do you think is the significance of Vonnegut including himself as a character in the narrative?
ReplyDeleteIn the narrative Kurt Vonnegut uses the colors blue, ivory, orange, and black repeatedly through the novel. The colors orange and black are used in the tent that Billy put up for his daughter’s wedding and the POW train had a marked banner of orange and black. Blue and ivory are often used when describing the feet of a character. What do you think the meaning of these colors are in the narrative and why did Vonnegut choose to use the colors?
ReplyDeleteIn Slaughterhouse- Five Vonnegut uses black humor in his attempt to console readers (as well as himself), in hopes of making the horrific, painful, unthinkable events of the war more bearable to read about. By using black humor, Vonnegut is also able to deliver his message to readers that war is not only terrible and tragic, but also ridiculous and inhumane. Some critics feel insulted by Slaughterhouse’s black humor and believe that Vonnegut (in using black humor) tried to ignore or degrade the tragedy of war. Imagine reading the book without Vonnegut’s use of black humor. Would the book now be portrayed as too raw and gruesome and upset readers?
ReplyDelete-McKenzie Moore
Vonnegut writes about himself within Slaughterhouse-Five in a few places (mainly the first and tenth chapters). It is in the tenth chapter Vonnegut switches points of view and reveals himself as one of the soldiers alongside Billy.
ReplyDelete“Now Billy and the rest were being marched into the rums by their guards I was there O'Hare was there. We had spent the past two nights in the blind innkeeper's stable. Authorities had found us there. They told us what to do.” (pg 271)
As we know, Vonnegut (just like Billy’s character), was taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge, sent to the city of Dresden, stayed in “Slaughterhouse- Five”, worked in a factory that produced nourishing syrup, survived the bombing of Dresden by burrowing in the meat locker, burned the bodies of thousands killed, and watched a friend shot dead for taking a teapot from the rummage of what was left of Dresden. Slaughterhouse-Five is not just Billy Pilgrim’s story of his experiences at war but also Vonnegut’s.
Do you believe Vonnegut is trying to protect himself by creating Billy’s character to be able to express the horrific experiences he (Vonnegut) saw in the war without associating them to himself? As Billy wonders off to Tralfamador in means of escaping his reality and freeing himself from the terrors he experienced in the war, is Vonnegut disguising himself as Billy’s character in order to free himself and spread his message that war is inhumane?
-McKenzie Moore
In Dresden, Billy, Gluck, and Derby are in a communal kitchen and are waited on by a war widow. After questioning the three of them, she makes the comment "All the real soldiers are dead". Vonnegut writes the line "it was true" right after that. Do you think Vonnegut is trying to say he doesn't consider himself a real soldier? Or is just respecting his fallen comrades?
ReplyDeletePatrick Schwarz
When Billy is in the hospital after the plane crash, he shares a room with a man named Rumfoord. Rumfoord's wife brings him a copy of The Destruction of Dresden. Vonnegut includes forewords from the book, all explaining how Dresden was tragic, yet a 'military necessity'. By including these forewords in his book, do you think Vonnegut believes the bombing of Dresden was a military necessity?
ReplyDeletePatrick Schwarz
Billy is in a plane crash and is only one of two "survivors". He was unconscious for two days. I was thinking that the whole book could just be about Billy's dreams and flashbacks from his life in his unconscious state. Is it possible that the whole book is Billy's dreams in his unconscious state and when his flashbacks end he actually dies?
ReplyDeleteMatt Adkins
Billy is approached by two strangers while he is guarding the car and horses. The two strangers accost Billy about the condition of the horses. When he sees the condition of the horses he breaks down and cries. On page 252 it says "He hadn't cried about anything else in the war." Was he really crying over the horses condition or the condition he let himself get to in the war with the horses condition reflecting his own?
ReplyDeleteMatt Adkins