 | | Additional Information about Slaughter House Five
Portions of this page Copyright 1995 - 2008 Muze Inc.  All rights reserved.
| Synopsis | SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, a best-seller when it was first published in 1969, brought Kurt Vonnegut to prominence as a major voice in American fiction. Vonnegut was a POW held in Dresden in 1945 when the city was attacked by American bombers and virtually obliterated, leaving more than 130,000 people dead. He uses that event as the climax of this satirical and horrifying anti-war novel, in which a young man named Billy Pilgrim experiences much of what Vonnegut himself saw during the war. Unlike his creator however, Pilgrim has become "unstuck in time" following his abduction by aliens thus affording him the opportunity to travel freely across time, visiting different periods in his life in an attempt to sort out his complicated history. The book's anti-war stance, one reason for its success with the counterculture of the Vietnam War generation, is based on Vonnegut's premise that the dehumanization of people is to be avoided at all costs, and it is this stance that accounts for the novel's continued popularity.
| | Details | | Narrated by: | Ethan Hawke | | Edition Description: | Unabridged |
| | Size | | Height: | 5.8 in. | | Width: | 3.0 in. | | Thickness: | 0.8 in. | | Weight: | 5.6 oz. |
| | Publisher's Note | Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes 'unstuck in time' after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden. Slaughterhouse-Five is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is also as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch-22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it unique poignancy -- and humor.
| | Industry reviews | "Serious critics have shown some reluctance to acknowledge that Vonnegut is among the best writers of his generation. He is, I suspect, both too funny and too intelligent for many, who confused muddled earnestness with profundity. Vonnegut is not confused. He sees all too clearly....Only Billy's time-warped perspective could do justice to the cosmic absurdity of his life, which is Vonnegut's life and our lives."
New York Times Book Review - Robert Scholes (04/06/1969)
"What I...applaud is the marvelous comic scenes with the British prisoners of war; the control in the war scenes; the understated bitterness with which he handles the American soldiers....When Vonnegut stops preaching and is funny, I take him very seriously."
Washington Post Book World - Daniel Stern (04/13/1969)
|
|
| | The seller, flevsplace, assumes full responsibility for the content of this listing and the item offered.
|
|
| |
Track up to 10 items on this computer in 
)
