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Ever since the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination back on November 22, 1963, we have been experiencing numerous 50th anniversaries for landmark historical events from that tumultuous decade of the 1960's.
Well, this is pretty much the last year for that, but there are some huge ones this year. We will be seeing the 50th anniversary of the moon landing in July, and the 50th anniversary of Woodstock in August. But there is another 50th anniversary that recently passed, which also had a profound impact on society and the counterculture at the time (and has continued to have an impact ever since). That would be the publication of Kurt Vonnegut's iconic book, "Slaughterhouse-Five." The actual, full title, just in case you were wondering, is "Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death."
It was published on March 31, 1969 by Dell Publishing. It is a bit of a strange book, which makes it seem perfectly at home for the sixties. Some years after reading it, I remember seeing a copy of this book, and other works by Vonnegut, in my grandfather's personal library. This came as a pleasant surprise, and I wished that he had still been alive, so that we might have discussed the books and the ideas in it. I suspect that it would have been a very interesting conversation, and I would have loved to hear what he had to say about it, since it had a profound impact on me, making me a lifetime fan of Vonnegut, who has since become one of my very favorite authors.
Okay, so I did not exactly reread this book recently, although I enjoyed it immensely the first time that I read it, many years ago now. But I do remember it having a profound impact on me at the time that I read it. To be sure, it is not a conventional novel, with a straightforward narrative, and going in chronological order. In fact, one of the main ideas in the book is a questioning of our perception of time, as the main character, Billy Pilgrim, finds himself revisiting various experiences in his life, while he can watch all of these events simultaneously. He finds himself back in the war, during which time he was taken by the Germans as a prisoner of war, and went to Dresden to work (a bit more on this important piece of information later), then goes back to his married life in a comfortable suburb, and then back to the war, and then to the future, where he senses that he is about to be killed, and then back to the war again, and so on and so forth. Or, as Vonnegut might have put it himself in this landmark book, "So it goes..."
This was the first book or movie that I can remember that started at the ending, and ended in the beginning, again emphasizing, or challenging, our notions of what time is, and if it really is the one way street that we assume it to be. Here is a snippet of Vonnegut's writing on the main character, Billy Pilgrim, and the challenge that he has with being, as Vonnegut described it, "unstuck in time:"
This was the first book or movie that I can remember that started at the ending, and ended in the beginning, again emphasizing, or challenging, our notions of what time is, and if it really is the one way street that we assume it to be. Here is a snippet of Vonnegut's writing on the main character, Billy Pilgrim, and the challenge that he has with being, as Vonnegut described it, "unstuck in time:"
“Listen:
Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
Billy has gone to sleep a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day. He has walked through a door in 1955 and come out another one in 1941. He has gone back through that door to find himself in 1963. He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to all events in between.”
Clearly, this is not how most of us think of, much less experience, time. But Vonnegut looks at time in an entirely different way than we had before. He describes it a bit differently here, giving us a perspective of how Pilgrim was experiencing it in his novel:
“all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is.”
Slaughterhouse-Five, by the way, is English for “Schlachthof 5,” which is where Vonnegut (as well as the fictional main character of this book, Billy Pilgrim) stay while in Dresden. It is protected from the bombing by virtue of it being underground, and so Vonnegut survives what he described as the worst massacre in human history (even though I have read some information since that contests that, and minimizes the numbers killed). Whatever the truth is, Vonnegut was there, and he witnessed it and was horrified by it. He saw the bombed out city, and the German soldier watching the American POW's breaks down after seeing his city in ruins, and calls the Americans "schwein," German for pig.
Here's the thing: the Germans were not exactly innocent during World War II. We know this, and Vonnegut certainly knew it, as well. But he struggles with this overnight massacre, and describes it in gory detail which is meant to horrify. He describes how Dresden had been considered an "open city" throughout the war, which is to say that it had no military value, and so it had been left alone. When Pilgrim is taken prison and marched through the city, he obviously had conflicting emotions (not least of which was fear and confusion), yet he cannot help but marvel at the beauty of this enchanted, medieval city. This was in February of 1945, and the European war was in the closing stages. By then, it was clear that Germany was going to lose the war.
Yet, the residents of Dresden had escaped the worst of the bombing, and the city had been preserved because of it's "open" status. It sure appeared that the city would survive the war intact. That changed with the firebombing, and people apparently did not take the alarm seriously when it sounded. It had sounded before, but again, the city had no military value, so they knew - or thought they knew - that this was just another false alarm.
Only this time, of course, it was not a false alarm. The firebombing was only too real. Vonnegut described it as sounding like giants were walking above. The fire was so intense, that it took up all of the oxygen in the city, so that people could not breathe. Thus, it was an unbelievable massacre, and the city lay in smoking ruins the next morning.
Vonnegut struggled with the massacre for years afterward. It became the major event of this book, and he grappled with it in other writings, particularly in non-faction works and interviews, where he elaborated and explored what it might have meant, if indeed it had some kind of greater meaning. But in this book, he is quite clear about what he has to say about it:
Vonnegut struggled with the massacre for years afterward. It became the major event of this book, and he grappled with it in other writings, particularly in non-faction works and interviews, where he elaborated and explored what it might have meant, if indeed it had some kind of greater meaning. But in this book, he is quite clear about what he has to say about it:
“There is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre... Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-tee-weet?’”
Yes, again, the Germans were not exactly innocent during World War II. Neither were the Japanese, for that matter. But there is a question of whether or not that gives others the right to indiscriminately destroy whole cities, to kill tens or hundreds of thousands of people - and we are talking about civilians here, including women and children - at their discretion. Dresden was an "open city," and so it had been preserved, and Vonnegut talks about it almost as if it were a fairy tale kind of ancient city. It was beautiful. Then, it was destroyed, and for no particular reason. Again, the city had no military value, and Germany was well on it's way to being defeated. Yet, this city was completely destroyed, even though it really did not help the Allied war effort all that much, if at all. So, why do it? And does this not constitute a war crime itself? What about the other firebombings, or the two atomic bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki? When do we draw the line, and can we list these acts as war crimes or crimes against humanity? Is it justified because of the crimes committed by Germany during the war? Is it permissible because of the circumstances, or is it a forbidden subject? Is it swept under the rug because, after all, the allies won?
Should we talk about it, or just chalk it up to how terrible the war was?
Vonnegut felt the demon of this firebombing tormenting him. As he said, he could not make sense of it. And so he wrote a book about it, and the moral dilemmas. It is a bit of a chaotic book, one that challenges our perceptions of what war is, what is acceptable versus simply senseless slaughter, and, of course, what the nature of time itself is. It is a classic, and frankly, it probably could not have come from any other decade than the sixties, where it fits right in. It has become a classic in the half century since it was published, and deservedly so!
If you have not yet read this Vonnegut classic, do yourself a favor and go to your local library, and read it!
From Dresden on the 50th Anniversary of ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ by Malcolm Jack March 21, 2019:
The Moral Clarity of ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ at 50 by Kevin Powers March 6, 2019:
50 years on Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five remains untouched by time BY GEORGE CHESTERTON Follow him on Twitter @geochesterton Thursday 28 March 2019:
Why 'Slaughterhouse-Five' Deserves A Spot On Required Reading Lists, 50 Years After Its Original Publication By SADIE TROMBETTA, March 30, 2019:
Slaughterhouse-Five blurs time – and increases the power of reality by Sam Jordison, March 19, 2019:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2019/mar/19/slaughterhouse-five-blurs-time-kurt-vonnegut
Slaughterhouse-Five is told out of order – in line with the experience of war Kurt Vonnegut’s story defies conventional chronology, keeping it faithful to the disordered history it depicts by Sam Jordison, March 12, 2019:
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