Slaughterhouse 5, Kurt Vonnegut

Billy Pilgrim was a soldier in WWII, fighting on the German lines. At one point, he finds himself "unstuck" from time, and experiences his life from a non-linear perspective, and will find himself walking through doors and literally coming out of one from 10 years into the past or future. He is picked up by aliens, self-identified as tralfalmadorians, which view time as a single entity, and see in the 4th dimension. Through different events in his life and the process in which he travels, the story of Billy Pilgrim unfolds, and teaches a good lesson on how to deal with life.

Vonnegut's writing style is one that I personally enjoy because of his classic dry humour and sly jokes. His sense of humour is one I personally find funny, which further shapes this novel into a very unique work. He will often use phrases multiple times as motifs, such as "nestled like spoons" and "So it goes" in this particular novel, "So it goes" being a Tralfamadorian phrase used whenever they see something unfortunate, as they can just choose to focus on the good parts of life, since they see it as whole. He has a very convincing style, as even the way he narrates seems like how someone would talk, and the conversations between the characters and the things they say all seem very natural.

"So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a

big help." I personally like this one because it shows classic Vonnegut humour, but also shows

a lot of truth in what it says, which is that to try and change something, it takes a lot of

optimism, or that people who try change the world are blindly optimistic, which makes it

humorous. "The eight ridiculous ascertained that these hundred ridiculous creatures really

were American fighting men fresh from the front. They smiled, and then they laughed. Their

terror evaporated. There was nothing to be afraid of. Here were more crippled human beings,

more fools like themselves. Here was light opera." I like this passage because it comments on

how in the second world war, both soldiers and citizens suffered equally in Europe, and how

these citizens have come to realize that the men that they so feared were just off as badly as

they were. "Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar

bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted

human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer. So it goes."

I find this very funny because it is quite witty and black, and puts a funny twist on how most

people think of a money tree as being a wonderful, idealistic producer, but Vonnegut turns it

into a comment on how people die just for the sake of money.