The left hand picture is the cover version that I read in junior high, or high school (I don’t remember which). The right hand picture is the version that I just read. As far as I know, both versions are equivalent, except for the cover.
So, what is the book about? Very simply, it’s a biography of our protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, as he travels through the space-time continuum from the 1930’s to the 1960’s. Most of his travels concern the 1940’s, near the end of WWII, when he and other prisoners of war are housed in a slaughterhouse in the city of Dresden, just before and during the firebombing of the city. He also explores other time periods, in the book–including attending optometry school prior to his military service, and his post service, mostly suburban, life.
I’m sure that parts of the novel are based on autobiographical details of Kurt Vonnegut.
For this review, to me it’s more important to review WHY I am reading it.
This book is part of a series of my experiment in re-reading imaginative literature. I’ve picked a handful of novels that I want to read more deeply, and Slaughterhouse-Five is one of them. The idea is this. Read a novel as quickly as possible, capturing only very special moments, or quotes, in my reading notebook. Shortly afterwards, read the book again, paying attention to details, use of language, symbology or metaphors that resonate with me, and so on.
This review is based on my first read of this book (actually, it’s a second read but since it was a L-O-N-G time ago that I read this the first time, I started counting this most recent session as my first read)
There’s not much to add right now, but I’ll probably have more, or perhaps different perspectives when I reread this in the coming weeks or months.