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Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse 5: 50th Anniversary Edition Hardcover – 7 May 2019

by Kurt Vonnegut (Author)

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50th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION

As a young man and a prisoner of war, Kurt Vonnegut witnessed the 1945 US fire-bombing of Dresden in Germany, which reduced the once proudly beautiful city to rubble and claimed the lives of thousands of its citizens.
For many years, Kurt tried to write about Dresden but the words would not come. When he did write about it, he combined his trademark humour, unfettered imagination, boundless humanity and keen sense of irony to create one of the most powerful anti-war books every written, and an enduring American classic.

This special edition is published with notes of appreciation from some of the book's ardent fans (Kate Atkinson, Richard Herring, Robin Ince) as well as fascinating extra material from Vonnegut's archive which casts light on the genesis, reception and enduring influence of an iconic American classic.

Design DIEGO BECAS

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Product details

Publisher : VINTAGE ARROW - MASS MARKET (7 May 2019)
Language: : English
Hardcover : 192 pages
ISBN-10 : 178487485X
ISBN-13 : 978-1784874858
Dimensions : 14.4 x 2.6 x 20.4 cm

Best Sellers Rank: 36,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 88 in Censorship (Books)
- 407 in Satire (Books)
- 466 in Time Travel Fiction

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5,813 ratings

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Marvellous...the writing is pungent, the antics uproarious, the wit as sharp as a hypodermic needle ― Daily Telegraph

A laughing prophet of doom ― New York Times

Mr Vonnegut knows a great deal about what is probably the largest massacre in modern history - the fire-bombing of Dresden in 1945. Slaughterhouse Five is a reaction to the event by one of our most gifted and incisive novelists. A work of keen literary artistry -- Joseph Heller, author of 'Catch-22'

I came to this book later in life. I think it is, among other things, the loveliest, most delicate account of post-traumatic stress I've ever read ― like the water that simply runs from the eyes of Billy Pilgrim. -- Elizabeth Strout, author of 'My Name is Lucy Barton'

Unique...one of the writers who map our landscapes for us, who give names to the places we know best -- Doris Lessing

Book Description

50th anniversary hardback edition of the bestselling cult US classic - with extra material

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5 star		73%
4 star		15%
3 star		7%
2 star		3%
1 star		3%

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Rinaldo

A Time Travel Classic

Reviewed in Australia on 6 March 2019

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Reading this book in 2019 context, you can easily see how Vonnegut influenced the whole subgenre of Time Travel even in contemporary works: From Ted Chiang's The Arrival and Steins Gate.

Vonnegut excelled in seamlessly weaving his war commentaries with the vague blend of feverish dreams and reality.

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Lyn Haines

Incredible

Reviewed in Australia on 23 September 2019

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'So it goes.'

I'm not sure how Slaughterhouse-Five has escaped me so far. It's often sitting right in the middle of those top ten 'books to read before you die' lists. I now know why.

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Raquel

As relevant now as it was when it was written.

Reviewed in Australia on 26 February 2019

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A phlegmatic discourse on the pointlessness of war. Some of the imagery is powerfully unique, but what stood out for me was how applicable the cynicism still is, 50 years after the novel was published. So it goes.

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Tom Chapman

I am a fan of Kurt Vonnegut and have enjoyed everything he has written

Reviewed in Australia on 29 July 2016

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I am a fan of Kurt Vonnegut and have enjoyed everything he has written, sadly there will be no more. He is sometimes difficult to read and this book was no exception but the knowledge and skill that went into it came from his personal experience and it shone through.

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george hadley

... many tears ago so reading the book gave me great pleasure. The definitive description of the destruction was ...

Reviewed in Australia on 14 August 2014

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I saw the movie many tears ago so reading the book gave me great pleasure. The definitive description of the destruction was appalling but having lived through the London blitz, understandable.

2 people found this helpful

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duncan hardy

one of the great WWII books

Reviewed in Australia on 21 February 2016

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one of the great WWII books,comedic horror as in Catch 22, Dresden will not be forgotten. And so it goes...

One person found this helpful

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Colour me shocked!

Been meaning it read this for a long time...

Reviewed in Australia on 7 August 2018

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... and I'm glad I did. Nuff said.

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Jessica eieen kane

loved it

Reviewed in Australia on 30 August 2014

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amazing book, devoured it in two days. the writing style really gives you insight into the chaos of the protagonist's brain while at the same time unclouding his experiences.

One person found this helpful

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A.J. Sefton

Original, thought-provoking anti-war novel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 September 2019

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I finally got to read this book on the 50th anniversary of its publication. The originality of this anti-war book made it worth the wait and the themes are as valid today as they ever were.

The story is mainly set in Dresden during the Second World War, although eventually the protagonist realises that timeline of his life is something he can choose to enter when he chooses. So the story flits from his early days to when he is quite old and he experiences death, getting married, his daughter's marriage and so on.

But it his time in Dresden that is the most disturbing. He is a prisoner of war during the firebombing, captured as an American soldier fighting for the Allies. There is intricate detail of his peers, the characters' suffering and the things they had to do to survive. The significant feature is that they are young men, naive of the world they inhabit, hence the alternative title of The Children's Crusade.

In his future, the protagonist finds himself an exhibit in a glass cage on another planet. There he is observed and given a mate in an attempt to breed. This could be viewed as a science-fiction thread or an escapist strategy due to his post-traumatic stress disorder. The theme is free will versus fate, both on Earth and on the other planet, concluding that everyone does what they have to do: 'So it goes'.

The story is witty, ironic and poignant. It looks at death, warfare, time, suffering, innocence, morality and fate. It is simply written from one man's perspective as he witnesses and lives through the destruction and effects of war. An accessible book that leaves plenty to think about.

7 people found this helpful

Bookmarked Reviews

An anti-war testament - a must read!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 October 2020

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I felt compelled to revisit Vonnegut’s iconic anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse Five, for two reasons. Firstly, because from time to time (and our times are no exception) we all have to remind ourselves of the macabre of wars.
Vonnegut shows us the true colours of war. He dismantles all the naively romantic notions anyone may have about war, the unrealistic heroism and the false premise of winners and losers. I didn’t enjoy reading Slaughterhouse Five, but then it wasn’t written for anyone’s entertainment. It is stark, cruel and unforgiving. It is a warning. People die – good people, bad people, losers as well as conquerors, soldiers and civilians, youngsters and the elderly, dogs, horses, allies and enemies. No one is exempt. No one is immune. No one is above it. And so it goes. Vonnegut shows it in raw, ugly detail, and that detail is no fiction.
War and death equalise everyone. No nation is idealised and no nation is condemned in its collective totality. Faults and failings befall all. It is a brave concept not to idealise the winners. In fact, Vonnegut shows quite effectively that war destroys everyone and everything. Every construct of what’s right and wrong, good and bad, justifiable and inexcusable is absolutely false. The “victorious” Americans are bombed on par with German civilians in an “open” city of Dresden. The bombs don’t discriminate between “them” and “us”. It is all “us”. And this is the irony of it – wars are started because of divisions, but as they rage everyone pays the same price, feels the same pain and has only one life to lose.
My second reason was to explore the time-travel idea in the book. It is harrowing for Billy Pilgrim to go over and over again through his terrifying war experience. Time doesn’t work chronologically in this tale. The war never really ends. It remains present throughout Billy’s entire life. Events from his birth, childhood, wartime and his post-war civilian life are mingled together. The trauma he has lived through can never be consigned to the past. There is no past. There is no future. Time is not linear. Everything is happening simultaneously, all the time, and Billy jumps in and out of events while they carry on unfolding on an endless loop. Billy’s sojourn into the alien world of Tralfamadore is his brain’s way of coping with the scars left by the war on his psyche. Those who lived through war will never put it behind them. That message really hits home when you think of all those child refugees physically leaving war-affected areas but having to spend the rest of their lives trapped back there forever.
It is such a powerful idea. War is timeless. Once you have unleashed it, it will not end. Slaughterhouse Five should be a compulsory read for young people to digest before they enter adulthood in order to dispel their childhood “jolly-war” myths and shield them against glorification of war.

One person found this helpful

Kat Weazle

A true, timeless classic.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 April 2018

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Can be read more than once and works on so many levels. Funny, beautiful, disturbing, quirky, cruel, bighearted, surreal, it is neither a fable, sci-fi, war novel, or autobiographical novel but all this plus a meditation about the human race and the futility of war.
The film by George Roy Hill from 1972 is a fantastic adaptation of this 'unfilmable' book, worth taking a look.

7 people found this helpful

Amazon Customer

Great book, poor quality control

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 December 2018

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I love this book so I purchased it for my dad for christmas. When it arrived some of the pages were stuck together - the book had clearly been missed in quality control. This is so disappointing because I cant find a way to complain to the seller - I dont want to send the book back as it will be at my expense and effort, so I have just had to give it to my dad having taken a pair of scissors to it. It's only a small thing, but when you buy a book, at the very least you should be able to turn the pages -_-

4 people found this helpful

JRD

Hit me like a punch to the guts

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 September 2020

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I first read Slaughterhouse Five as student - getting on for twenty five years ago now. I loved it and have returned to it at intervals ever since. I seem to have misplaced my original copy in more recent times, so when I saw this version I felt it time to revisit an old favourite. This re-reading hit me hard. Without spoiling the plot, I read it much less as a time-travelling science fiction story and much more as a tale of the desperate effect that witnessing a horrendous war-time event had on the main character. Maybe the intervening years have changed me. Maybe my own perspectives on life and death had changed. I don't know. I do know that the book hit me like a punch to the guts.

A book then to read and re-read. Just don't expect a happy ending.

One person found this helpful

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