# Slaughterhouse-Five

By Kurt Vonnegut

Profile: https://hahafiction.com/books/slaughterhouse-five-79c29519/

Billy Pilgrim survives the bombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war, then lives through his past and future out of order. Civilian life and alien abduction sit alongside his wartime experiences as he tries to make sense of a life he can't follow chronologically.

## What makes it funny?

An early conversation compares writing against war to writing against glaciers: neither seems likely to stop its subject. The blunt comparison makes a bleak joke out of the assumption that war is inevitable, while the narrator also pokes fun at his own efforts to write about it.

### The comedy at work

Vonnegut's narrator moves from casual remarks about himself to wartime deaths in the same plain, conversational voice. That lack of a comforting change in register lets a joke and a horror occupy neighboring sentences.

### Try this if…

Choose this for dark satire that asks you to piece together a life across time. Its speculative ideas accompany an emotionally painful war story, with little relief from the knowledge of what happened in Dresden.

### Good to know

The destruction of Dresden, war deaths and lasting trauma are central to the book. Expect frank language as well as dark jokes.

## What to expect

- Genre: Contemporary & literary · Science fiction
- Kind of humor: Dark comedy · Satire
- Format: Novel
- Length: 288 pages
- Audiobook: 5 hr 54 min
- Published: 1969

## A few distinguishing details

- Billy Pilgrim's life told out of order
- Dresden and alien abduction in one war novel
- An antiwar argument compared to opposing glaciers

## Sources & further reading

- Publisher: [Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut: 9780385333849 - Penguin Random House](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/184345/slaughterhouse-five-by-kurt-vonnegut/9780385333849)
- Library catalog: [Available Now - Slaughterhouse-Five - Los Angeles Public Library - OverDrive](https://lapl.overdrive.com/library/available/media/76129)
- Publisher: [Publisher](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/184345/slaughterhouse-five-by-kurt-vonnegut/9780385333849)
- Publisher: [UK publisher](https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/360655/slaughterhouse-5-by-vonnegut-kurt/9780099800200)
- Reading sample: [Publisher excerpt](https://www.penguinrandomhouseretail.com/book?isbn=9780385333849)
- Review: [Patrick S. Tomlinson on science-fiction comedy](https://reactormag.com/five-sci-fi-books-that-crank-out-the-funny)