Slaughterhouse Five has given me pretty mixed feelings. I
absolutely loathed it at first but gradually the dislike subsided as I kept
reading. Even now that I’ve finished the book, I’m still unsure of how I feel
about it. I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either. At the same time there
were parts of the story I honestly enjoyed reading. The unorthodox structure
was hard to get used to at first, but once I got past that it didn’t bother me
anymore. Strangely enough, I even got used to it. One thing I will say about
the storyline is that it kept things interesting.
There
were definitely story lines within the novel that I liked more than others. For
example, I enjoyed the parts about Billy and his family, but not so much the
parts about the war or about the Tralfamadorians. Though they did have some
interesting things to say, those parts were too much of a stretch for me. It was enough accepting all the time travel and flashbacks, but
throwing aliens into the mix made it all a little too crazy.
I think the main thing that bothered
me about the book was how pathetic Billy’s character is. He doesn’t really have
any redeeming qualities. I could honestly only describe him as descriptive and
indifferent. He never expressed strong
emotion or passion for anything. He
seems to just float through his life, taking everything in as it happens and
never challenging any of it. He doesn’t even react to any of it. This kind of
complacency I found slightly frustrating. Typically the main character in
novels is someone you admire or love or have some kind of emotional attachment
towards. I felt nothing towards Billy aside from mild annoyance. After watching
the video in class about Vonnegut talking about the structure of stories, it’s
clear he neither advocates nor utilizes the traditional storyline” and I’m
assuming he isn’t a huge fan of the whole “heroic protagonist” idea either. In
fact, Vonnegut didn’t create any characters that were even remotely heroic.
Most of them never even get developed because they die at some point (que the
ever famous phrase “so it goes”).
Speaking of, however, I did like
the repetition of that phrase whenever death was mentioned. Depressing as it
was, I appreciated the consistency. I also enjoyed some of the Tralfamadorians
views, like their concept of time and how they were able to see moments in the
past, present, and future all at once. I appreciated how Vonnegut wove that in at various
points in the story, like when the Tralfamadorians were talking about how the
universe ends and when Billy mentioned his death.
Overall I think reading this gave me a better
understanding of dark humor (though I can now say I’m not a huge fan of it). It
isn’t the typical, ha-ha funny kind of humor, it’s the kind of humor that
satirizes and makes light of serious things, like war. This book isn’t meant to
actually make me chuckle.
That
being said, there were times when I laughed out loud while I was reading. Most
often I found myself laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. Especially with
Billy. I think the epitome of this absurdity was the image of him wearing the
silver boots, draped in the azure curtains while walking around looking like a
total fool and thinking nothing of it.
Other
things I found funny were just downright terrible. They were the kind of things
you laugh at, but then feel bad about it after. For example, the whole scene
with the hobo dying in the box cracked me up. It was so ironic and depressing I
couldn’t help but laugh.
Despite my opinions about the book,
I didn’t have any trouble reading it. It was interesting enough that I could read
it without falling asleep, and in a way I enjoyed not being able to figure
every part of it out. But without a doubt, this was hands down one of the
weirdest books I have ever read.
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