Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
One of the nice things about ebooks is how they allow you to easily analyze aspects of a book that would have been much more tedious or time-consuming to analyze back in the days of books made through the sacrifice of trees.
For instance, in just a few moments I was able to find out Slaughterhouse Five repeats the phrase “so it goes” 106 times. Amazon lists the paperback edition as being 224 pages long.
The repetition of the phrase is a device used for varying effects and at first I accepted it as such a device and nothing more. Toward the end of the book, though, it finally became grating. Maybe that was the point all along.
So it goes.
Slaughterhouse Five is irreverent and droll and makes important statements about the purpose and meaning of life, contrasting its absurd characters and banal suburban life against the horror of World War II and specifically the firebombing of Dresden, something Vonnegut experienced directly as a POW. Vonnegut’s time as a journalist undoubtedly influenced his writing style, which is as concise and straightforward as his subject matter is sardonic. The contrast between grim reality and the absurd is constant and lends the novel a surrealistic feel, as if one is not really reading a narrative but instead catching glimpses of a life or lives that are dull and depressing, filled with few moments of genuine joy.
For as light as the writing style is, Slaughterhouse Five is a glum thing. I can’t say I enjoyed reading it, but I admire Vonnegut’s technique and the ease with which he draws out scenes with simple phrases–the buttons of a man’s spine, the tearing of a coat too small, the grit and grime in window sills. In many ways it’s a fascinating book but not one I’d particularly want to revisit.
So it goes.