Review: Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

This won’t be a review. Seems a little presumptuous to review this book.

I read this book after watching Arrival and Interstellar close together. Completely unplanned. These stories all dealt with the non-linearity of time in their own ways.

In Cat’s Cradle, the saying is “busy, busy, busy”. For this book, the refrain is “So it goes”.

Vonnegut’s story can hardly be categorized as sci-fi. It makes you doubt, intentionally one would assume, whether the sci-fi is in the mind of the author or the character.

As a thought experiment - if all things are destined to be the way they are, to happen the way they would, what is the need for “free will” but better understanding and visibility into time itself. Is the need for “free will” a simple crutch when we cannot see all the time can show us?

Last thing to mention. The contrast between the British POW and the American POW is quite ironic. The healthy, well-rested soldier’s soldier has been stuck the entire war as POWs while the ill-equipped and ill-trained are sent to the front line or places like Dresden.