Book
Slaughterhouse-five, or, The children's crusade : a duty-dance with death / by Kurt Vonnegut.
Record details
- ISBN: 0385333846 (pbk.)
- Physical Description: 275 p. : ill.
- Publisher: New York : Dell Publishing, c1969.
Content descriptions
| General Note: | "A Delta book." "A fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much), who, as an American infantry scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, "The Florence of the Elbe," a long time ago, and survived to tell the tale. This is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from. Peace." |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Classics > Fiction Literary > Fiction World War, 1939-1945 > Fiction Satire |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cookstown Branch | FIC Vonne | 31681020007720 | FICTIONPBK | Available | - |
- Baker & Taylor
An accessible paperback edition of a popular classic is a satirical social analysis that follows the haphazard life experiences of a man who is abducted by aliens and rendered a prisoner of war during the 1945 bombing of Dresden. Reissue. - Baker & Taylor
Billy Pilgrim returns home from the Second World War only to be kidnapped by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, who teach him that time is an eternal present - Random House, Inc.
Kurt Vonnegutâs masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five is âa desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth centuryâ (Time).
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Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time ⢠One of The Atlanticâs Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
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Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the worldâs great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barberâs son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming âunstuck in time.â
An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegutâs writingâthe political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive witâthat have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim OâBrien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegutâs words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as âthe kind of writer who made peopleâyoung people especiallyâwant to write.â George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be âthe great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.â
More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegutâs portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own eraâs uncertainties.
