Slaughter-House Five is quite different than I originally thought it would be like. I figured it would be just another one of those strange, boring books that we are forced to read. However, I was wrong. I really liked how in chapter one Vonnegut kind of set the scene in his life. He gave us a little background information on him and a little look inside of his personality. In my point of view, Vonnegut seems like a pretty cool guy. He is quite random at times and yet it makes the book more interesting. I also like when he talks about how he is a drunk dialer. He says that when he gets drunk, he tends to grab the phone and call people, like his old friends, while his wife is upstairs. Strange man. Then when he called his friend, O'Hare, I thought it was sweet of O'Hare to invite Vonnegut over to talk about war. It was funny that O'Hare's wife, Mary, was upset at Vonnegut right from the start. Although, I did think that it was very cute that Vonnegut told Mary that he would dedicate his book to her and that he would make war sounds awful for the young ones.
I liked the second paragraph just as much as the first. However, before I started to read the second paragraph, I had to go and look in the back of the book to see if the last line was exactly what Vonnegut said it would be. And it was. Then I went back and read the second paragraph. After reading it, I felt really bad for Billy Pilgrim. He had so many unfortunate events happen in his life. For one, he survived a plane crash, but while he was recovering in the hospital, his wife dies of carbon monoxide poisoning. What are the chances? Secondly, he has to go to war. Not only is it unfortunate for him to go to war, but while he is there it is winter and he has thin-ripped clothing, broken shoes, and no hat or gloves. Then while he is there, he gets beat up by his own kind while the Germans watch. How sad. One thing that is pretty cool in this chapter is the idea of being unstuck in time. Like when you are , you aren't really it is just a bad moment in time for you. Whenever you want, you can go and visit other moments in time. I thought that this was pretty neat.
After reading both chapter one and two, I decided that I like the direction this book is going. It sounds like it is going to be pretty interesting and make a good story, with some parts true and some parts false. We don't know which is which. That's the fun part!
Ending of Caucasia
15 years ago
3 comments:
I felt the same way about the first chapter. While I was reading it, I kept thinking that this guy would be a cool guy to get to know better based on the infomation he gave us in those first few pages.
I completely agree. I really like this book so far, and I love Vonnegut's personality that comes through in the story.
I also agree with the idea of moving around in time. Even though we're not physically leaving, we are always revisiting the past and looking into our hopeful future in our minds.
I agree, I really like this book, and I think that Vonnegut's writing shows how he really is kind of a hardened old war veteran. His talking about drinking and talking with old war buddies tells this, as well as his crude, pervasive at times writing kind of tells that he has seen a lot of things and he is kind of desensitized to everything now.
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