Slaughterhouse 5

'Slaughterhouse 5' aka 'The Children's Crusade' by Kurt Vonnegut.

6.5/10

This book was recommended to me a long time ago and I had it on my wishlist since then. The other week I found it in a shop for not much money at all. It was one of those situations where you're waiting for someone that's already at the till, and then find something you really want but don't want to queue for, so you end up elbowing poor shoppers out of the way or leaning over, and knocking down, shelves and displays to give it to the person at the till just so you don't have to wait around. You know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, two tumbled displays and a little argument that had me hearing "you told me not to let you buy any more books, so I'll pay for it" later, I had my book.

It's a surprisingly little book. I was expecting something at least an inch thick or more. A heavy tome that went with this book's big reputation. However, the book is only 10 chapters - 157 pages - long. And the first chapter - 16 of those pages - is for the most part an introduction.

It's such a strange story, too.

It's about Billy Pilgrim, a prisoner of war, optometrist, and time-traveller. It's an anti-war sci-fi book centered on the fire-bombing of Dresden in World War 2. It's funny, dry, dark, heart-breaking, and immensely moving.

It is a weird one to get into in the beginning, especially if you're expecting a serious, anti-war, propaganda read. It's not. It's far from that. It makes you think life and death and all the important things, and makes you wonder if they're really all that important in the grand scheme of things anyway.

The time-travelling part is what makes this book 'strange', I think. Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time and experiences his life completely out of sequence. One moment he'll be on the run from Germans, the next he'll be watching his wife sleep twenty-five years later. Sometimes he knows where and when he is, sometimes he doesn't. And sometimes when he travels in time, he'll travel right back again as soon as he closes his eyes.

This very different approach to a novel about real war events is almost unsettling. Like laughing at something you shouldn't and then realising that what you're laughing at would very much make you cry if you let it. In fact, that's how a lot of this book reads. You laugh, and then you realise your heart just broke a little, and it hurts.

I wouldn't recommend this book to just anyone. As much as I love it I think people might need a bit of an interest in the Second World War and an open mind to really like it. I can think of more people that probably wouldn't than people that would. Still, being so short I don't think many people would complain if they spent one evening reading a book that I believe at least deserves a chance. You might be surprised. I know I was.