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Mar 31, 2019 · Between February 13 and February 15, 1945, Allied bombers dropped nearly four thousand tons of high explosives and incendiaries on the historic German city of Dresden. The effect was...
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Slaughterhouse-Five, antiwar novel by Kurt Vonnegut, published in 1969. The absurdist, nonlinear work blends science fiction with historical facts, notably Vonnegut’s own experience as a prisoner of war in Dresden, Germany, during the Allied firebombing of that city in early 1945. It is considered a modern-day classic.
In the novel’s opening chapter, Vonnegut mentions his time as a POW as well as his return to Dresden. He also discusses the process of writing the novel and is a minor character in the work. The next chapter introduces Billy Pilgrim, who is “unstuck in time,” moving throughout his life randomly. Told in chronological order, his story begins with his birth in 1922. Later he is studying to be an optometrist when he is drafted during World War II. He serves as a chaplain’s assistant and is at the Battle of the Bulge, where he meets Roland Weary, a sadistic soldier who saves Billy’s life on several occasions, hoping to be seen as a hero. The two are captured, and, shortly before dying from gangrene, Weary blames his demise on Billy. The latter is transported as contract labour to Dresden, where he and other POWs are kept in a slaughterhouse. He survives the firebombing at Dresden. Billy is later freed and returns to the United States, where he suffers a nervous breakdown. Following his recovery, he marries and has two children while becoming a very successful optometrist.
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The Literary World (Famous Novels)
Shortly after his daughter’s wedding, Billy is taken by aliens to the planet Tralfamadore and exhibited in a zoo there. During his stay on their planet, he learns that Tralfamadorians have a completely different concept of time: for them, every moment, whether in the past, present or future, has always existed, always will, and will occur over and over again. They are able to revisit any part of their lives at will, and so to them an individual’s death does not matter, as they are still alive in the past. During this time, he falls in love with another kidnapped human, an actress named Montana Wildhack, and they have a child.
One of the most important events in Billy’s life was witnessing the Allied carpet-bombing and firebombing of Dresden (which leveled the city and reportedly killed at least 25,000 civilians), and the descriptions of that horror bring home in gripping fashion Vonnegut’s eloquent antiwar message. Despite its bleak message, however, Slaughterhouse-Five...
Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut. It follows the life experiences of Billy Pilgrim, from his early years, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant during World War II , to the post-war years.
- Kurt Vonnegut
- 1969
- Kurt Vonnegut made multiple attempts to start Slaughterhouse-Five. After repeated and failed attempts to start his “Dresden book,” Vonnegut finally began what would become Slaughterhouse-Five during a two-year teaching stint at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
- Vonnegut credits Iowa’s writing program for rekindling his love of literature. “Suddenly writing seemed very important again,” he said. “This was better than a transplant of monkey glands for a man my age.”
- He was offered an impressive book advance. Impressed by the book reviews Vonnegut wrote during his hiatus from fiction, publisher Seymour Lawrence offered Vonnegut a $25,000 advance to work on his Dresden book (and two other novels) full-time.
- Slaughterhouse-Five was an instant hit. Published on March 31, 1969, Slaughterhouse-Five became an instant and surprise hit. It spent 16 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list and went through five printings by July.
Jun 13, 2019 · Eight years earlier, in 1961, Joseph Heller had published “ Catch-22 ” and President John F. Kennedy began the escalation of the United States’ involvement in the conflict in Vietnam....
Slaughterhouse-Five is about a man called Billy Pilgrim who time-travels frequently. He was in the Second World War and, captured, was sent to Dresden to work in a malt syrup factory before the city was bombed.
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Billy Pilgrim has mysteriously become unstuck in time. He goes on an uncontrollable trip back and forth from his birth in New York to life on a distant planet and back again to the horrors of the 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden.
