Day(s) 16 thru 19 – 52 Books in 52 Weeks

I took a few days off – I was down visiting my family. I started Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse – Five before I left, and I’m about halfway through it already. It’s a very fast and easy read.

I’m a little confused since the book jacket has three quotes stating that the book is funny or hilarious. I haven’t really felt it to be so. It has funny parts, but nothing I thought was hilarious by any means.

The book follows Billy Pilgrim, a man who really didn’t like being alive, however, he was the lone survivor of an airplane crash, though suffered serious head injuries. The story chronicles his life through his spasmodic time traveling. One minute he’s in Germany during WWII, another minute he’s in an alien spacecraft heading for Tralfamadore, another instance he’s in his optometry office.

At this point in the story, I don’t know if he’s just suffering hallucinations due to his injuries, if he’s suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, or if he’s just bored with his life and is daydreaming … or if he really was abducted by Tralfamadorians.

Vonnegut’s style is, to use a phrase pulled from music, staccato. Short sentences; short paragraphs; kinda choppy, but very easy to read. One phrase that is used over and over is, “So it goes.” This is used every time someone or something “dies.” And there is a lot of death – it seems that everyone Billy comes into contact with ends up dying.

Anyway, I’m enjoying the book – even though I don’t find it as hilarious as those who reviewed it for the jacket.

Happy reading!