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Slaughterhouse 5, or The Children's Crusade - A Duty-dance with Death
 
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Slaughterhouse 5, or The Children's Crusade - A Duty-dance with Death (Paperback)

by Kurt Vonnegut (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
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  • This item: Slaughterhouse 5, or The Children's Crusade - A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut

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Product details

  • Paperback: 176 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (17 Oct 1991)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0099800209
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099800200
  • Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 13 x 1.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 716 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in these categories:

    #1 in  Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Authors, A-Z > V > Vonnegut, Kurt
    #1 in  Books > Fiction > 20th Century Classics > Vonnegut Jr., Kurt
    #2 in  Books > History > World History > World War II 1939-1945 > Origins

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

It took Vonnegut more than 20 years to put his Dresden experiences into words. He explained, "there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again." Slaughterhouse Five is a powerful novel incorporating a number of genres. Only those who have fought in wars can say whether it represents the experience well. However, what the novel does do is invite the reader to look at the absurdity of war. Human versus human, hedonist politicians pressing buttons and ordering millions to their deaths all for ideologies many cannot even comprehend. Flicking between the US, 1940's Germany and Tralfamadore, Vonnegut's semi- autobiographical protagonist Billy Pilgrim finds himself very lost. One minute he is being viewed as a specimen in a Tralfamadorian Zoo, the next he is wandering a post-apocalyptic city looking for corpses. Slaughterhouse Five-Or The Children's Crusade A Duty-Dance with Death is a remarkable blend of black humour, irony, the truth and the absurd. The author regards his work a "failure", millions of readers do not. Released the same time bombs were falling on South East Asia, this title caused controversy and awakening. Essential reading for all. So it goes. --Jon Smith

Product Description

Prisoner of war, optometrist, time-traveller - these are the life roles of Billy Pilgrim, hero of this miraculously moving, bitter and funny story of innocence faced with apocalypse. "Slaughterhouse 5" is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centring on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden in the Second World War, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.
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Customer Reviews

48 Reviews
5 star:
 (33)
4 star:
 (7)
3 star:
 (5)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (48 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Absurdities, 5 Jun 2006
By M. Moran - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Taught now in English classes as a post-modern sketch of the absurdity of war, this novel uses a collage of techniques and genres--science fiction, episodic storytelling, Absurdism, memoir--to get its point across.

It's point can still be missed, however. War is fought by children, Vonnegut explains, caught up in something that they often do not understand. Therein lay the absurdity. Vonnegut's own personal history, captured and held in Dresden during the bombing, allowed him firsthand to witness the devastation war can bring. Ideologies are transient, he realizes. And the destruction of one of the most beautiful European cities and the deaths of 24,000 human beings had a profound effect on him. What is the point? Examine the purpose of life. What is it?

The story demands the reader to ask questions of him/herself.

Also, the impact this book has had on literature can't be ignored. In an earlier review, the stylistic similarities to Adams and Irving, both who followed Vonnegut and so were obviously influenced, was mentioned. That's important. You can trace a number of modern satirists to Vonnegut--Palahniuk being my own personal favorite.

Whether you agree with Vonnegut's stance on war as absurd or not, Slaughterhouse-Five is worth a careful reading.
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A short masterpiece, 15 Jun 2001
By Penguin Egg (London, England) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
Slaughterhouse 5 is every bit as good as it's reputation suggests. It is witty, observant, humane, and clever. Vonnegut writes in a deceptively simple prose, but which must have been difficult to have pulled off: namely, the way the story flits from the present to the past and to the future, very often in a single page, but manages to do it without disturbing the effortless flow of the narrative. No mean trick for a writer. A favourite book of mine. I can also recommend some of his earlier books: The Sirens of Titan; Piano Player; Mother Night, and Player Piano. His later books are not so hot; but Slaughterhouse 5 is his masterpiece. Like Heller's Catch 22, with which it has something in common, it is fun to read.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Compassion shines through satire, 5 Mar 2004
By Andy Millward (Broxbourne, Herts, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)      
This review is from: Slaughterhouse 5 (Vintage Crucial Classics) (Paperback)
Ignore the sneering review, this is a modern classic. In the hands of another author, this might have become a pot-boiling melodrama, but in the compassionate - some would almost say dispassionate tones and measured language of Vonnegut it becomes a deadly weapon - a deadpan satire with teeth, explaining the firebombing of Dresden in terms to bring shame to those who perpetrated this war crime - the victors, in this case.

Vonnegut also employs a simple science fiction technique to great effect - allowing Billy Pilgrim to travel up and down his life at will rather than living it sequentially is far more satisfying than flashbacks and flashforwards.

I find it an incredibly moving book, one of very few worthy of their accolades.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars War sucks
Children fight in war while the elders talk. That's the way it will always be.
What's impressive though is that Mr V has scripted a quite remarkable book
on what he... Read more
Published 27 days ago by Observer

4.0 out of 5 stars Give it a chance
Let me start with the honest truth, the first time I read this book I HATED it. I forced myself to get to the end and still couldn't work out what made it in any way special. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Little Miss Average

1.0 out of 5 stars Childlike, in more than one way!
This book is a complete waste of time. It is so difficult to read as it jumps back and forth in time. Read more
Published 2 months ago by sean smith

5.0 out of 5 stars possibly the best - and most important - novel of the 20th Cent.

This the second time I have bought and read this book. After reading it in the 1990s it haunted me and I would find myself referring to it in conversations. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Campbell McNeill

4.0 out of 5 stars strong but incoherent
A powerful book and consistently interesting to read.

But ultimately if someone is a time traveller and is present equally at all moments in their life and knows what... Read more
Published 6 months ago by William Jordan

5.0 out of 5 stars A work of genius
I finished this book on a sunny afternoon. It was one of the most powerful books I have ever read, it doesn't matter if you have an appreciation of WW2 or not. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Mr. SJ HEFFERNAN

4.0 out of 5 stars It grew on me.
Another of my book club's suggestions and not my normal thing.

At first I didn't like this, i thought the lead character was a little bit strange and i didn't... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Chris Sams

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best
One of the most unique and best American novels ever.Massive impact and influence.A true human classic.
Published 6 months ago by bucky

3.0 out of 5 stars A cool (not classic) book about the war
How can you write a book about a massacre without dramatizing or glorifying war?

That was the dilemma Kurt Vonnegut faced when he decided to write about his... Read more
Published 6 months ago by A. Guimaraes

4.0 out of 5 stars War, Aliens, Time Travel, Optometrists. Brilliant
Poignant, ironic and chock full of dry wit, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five is a must read for fans of near all genres - there's war, aliens, time travel and more. Read more
Published 7 months ago by J. Green

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