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“Slaughterhouse-Five″ by #KurtVonnegut (Part Two)

What I don’t love about this book:

Kurt Vonnegut is often remembered or accused of being pretentious, and it’s a charge that even if you don’t agree with it, you can see the argument for, even in “Slaughterhouse-Five.” There are numerous times where Vonnegut delves into metaphysics in this novel that become eye-crossing tedious to follow. It’s especially likely to happen when he discusses his beloved aliens, the Tralfamadorians, which normally I’m thrilled by the inclusion of space aliens.  

Another thing I’m not a fan of is the numerous and varied characters don’t develop. They are precisely the same people when you meet them as when they leave the scene forever. Part of this, is there are a lot of them, when you have a large cast of named characters it’s hard to give them all the spotlight to grow and change—but nobody does. It makes sense why Billy doesn’t change throughout the book—he’s unstuck in time and experienced all the moments of his life and therefore has nothing to cause him to change or grow. The other characters orbiting Billy, make less sense, though. If I were to hazard a guess, the implicit messaging is all characters are like Billy, they just can’t perceive it as he can, and therefore no one is capable of change. I get it—it’s just not something that resonates with me.

Want more? Get my full review here:

“Slaughterhouse-Five″ by #KurtVonnegut (Part One)

Today we’re going to talk about “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, the novel that made that man’s career. Sometimes, the hype is real, and while my personal favorite Vonnegut story is “Sirens of Titan,” I felt I should talk about the most well known Vonnegut story first.

“Slaughterhouse-Five” is a hard story to classify because Vonnegut was one of those literary darlings who didn’t constrain himself to any one mere genre. But since I hate the dreaded catch-all “fiction,” classification let’s give it a shot—“Slaughterhouse-Five” certainly has its share of science fiction elements, with the time travel and whatnot. However, I’d probably have to peg it most accurately as a darkly humorous anti-war novel.

What I love about this book:

To steal a descriptor I find fitting that I had read about a character in a novel I’d read recently, Kurt Vonnegut was cheerfully disappointed in the entirety of the human experience. His writing captures that feeling at all times. While typically, I consider myself an optimist or would like to think I make an effort at being an optimist, and let’s face it I’m probably just a deluded pessimist. It’s sometimes fun to read someone’s work, which takes the diametrically opposite outlook on life. That’s why I love Kurt Vonnegut’s work, including this book, he reminds me that no one and nothing should take itself so seriously.

The time and place Vonnegut manages to conjure with his writing specifically when he’s talking about Dresden. He talks about his brief impressions of the city before the firebombing, immediately afterward, and years later. In the section immediately after the bombing, when the POWs are conscripted to sift through the ruins, I was especially disturbed by his description of the hunt for bodies as being the worst Easter Egg hunt ever. It’s that jarring contrast that makes Vonnegut’s writing powerful.

Want more? Get my full review here: 

King's take on a western in which one man chases another man in search of answers in the start of this series.

Book Review – The Gunslinger

The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower #1) by Stephen King Kindle Edition, 336 pages | Published July 1st 2003 by Signet (first published 1982)

Stephen King… Stephen…King I have a hate/love relationship with King and his work and this is from years of reading his work and falling in love or hating and despairing as to what I read.

This is all my older brother’s fault – He’s a King fan and one day…

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