# 📔 Slaughterhouse Five (Book) Created On: 07-29-2025 08:57 am --- # ℹ️ Information **Author**:: [[Kurt Vonnegut]] **Category**:: [[Fiction (Book)]] **Tags**:: #note/literature📖 #source/book **Pages**:: 275 **Hours**:: 6 **Status**:: Read **Progress**:: 100% **Started Date**:: [[2025-07-26]] **Finished Date**:: [[2025-08-02]] **Times Read**:: 1 **Rating**:: 4.25 --- # 🏔️ What It's About # 🧠 Overall Thoughts ## 👍 What I Liked - “So it goes”; cosmic indifference - Deployed whenever someone perishes; as to how the world and time sees us. - It’s a central theme and point of the book: it represents an *indifference*, both in our individual experience to the world, but also in the juxtaposition of other war books; books of this genre promote heroism and war, but Vonnegut dismantles that with indifference and satire, giving us an absurdly lens into PTSD/trauma. - It’s absurd and deadpan yet laconic in stylistic delivery and form. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever read; truly a differentiated voice as an author. - Lines like, “Billy got off his lounge chair now, went into the bathroom, and took a leak. The crowd went wild.” feel essential Vonnegut - The commentary is flat - just facts about the scene, at times - but at the same time, it’s catapulted in absurd juxtaposition that produces a clear and hilarious visual or sub-commentary, which is odd because the scene setting isn’t *labored over* by any means whatsoever. Again, *minimal* is stylistic mechanic. - The combination: it’s hilarious… I literally laughed out loud in the quote above - Even concerning the form or structure of the book, it has extremely tight sections, with often, little care to graceful transitions. Yet, ironically, it never reads as narratively jarring; it maintains a fluidness that makes reading a delight. - ## 👎 What I Didn't Like - # ☘️ How the Book Changed Me %% How my life / behavior / thoughts / ideas have changed as a result of reading the book. %% # 🤝 Who Should Read It? Anyone looking for an easy read, but enjoys pseudo-dark comedy. # ✍️ My Top 3 Quotes > So it goes… > Billy got off his lounge chair now, went into the bathroom, and took a leak. The crowd went wild. --- # Notes - **Question to explore**: does Vonnegut’s stylistic detachment mirror (described above) psychological detachment, such as trauma and PTSD? (deep dive with [[ChatGPT]]) - When you say Vonnegut’s tone is “laconic” or “emotionally deferent,” what does that evoke for you personally? Does it remind you of how real people sometimes talk about traumatic events? Is there something healing—or harmful—about the flatness? - How does Billy's absurd behavior reflect a traumatized psyche? For example, what’s the connection between his time-traveling or being “unstuck in time” and actual trauma responses like dissociation? - What do you make of the contrast between the absurd events (like the crowd cheering a bathroom break) and the horrific events (like the firebombing of Dresden)? Is Vonnegut using absurdity as a shield? Or is it a mirror, showing us how *nsane reality already is? - Do you think the reader is meant to laugh at Billy, sympathize with him, or both? How does Vonnegut thread that needle? What moments make you feel _closest_ to Billy—and what distances you? - Why do you think Vonnegut _chose_ to portray PTSD this way, instead of something more directly emotional or confessional? What might he be saying about the limits of language—or even of literature—when it comes to war? - (Billy and Kilgore talking about Eliot Rosewater’s letter to Trout), “‘He *writes* like a fourteen-year-old’ said Kilgore Trout” - Hilarious - Knowing Eliot was THE ONLY person to ever right Kilgore a letter about his works, it’s the deepest cut, as a writer, he can make to a fan of his writing 🤣 -