by James Wallace Harris, 2/8/24
When I first read Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut back in 1970 I thought of it as an antiwar novel. The Vietnam War overshadowed everything back then, and I was old enough to be drafted. 1970 was the year M.A.S.H. and Catch-22 came out in the movie theaters. I went to see Catch-22 and was so blown away that I bought the book, read it in a day, and then went to see the movie version again. I didn’t read the book version of M.A.S.H. for another year but saw the film in 1970 too. Ever since I’ve thought of Slaughterhouse-Five, Catch-22, and M.A.S.H. as the trilogy of anti-war novels of my generation. The books were all about hating war.
When I read Slaughterhouse-Five again, in 2006 when I was 55, I listened it on audio. That time it was a completely different novel. That time it was hilarious. It was over-the-top silly, slapstick, and viciously satirical. At that time I focused on the Tralfamadorians and Kilgore Trout, and Vonnegut’s commentary on science fiction. In 2006 I noticed the antiwar parts, but they didn’t seem to be the primary point of the novel. They were still horrifying, but I found it hard to take Slaughterhouse-Five as a serious novel about WWII. That happened to me last year when I tried to reread Catch-22.
Now in 2024, when I’m 72, I listened to the book again. This time the story was bittersweet, heavy on the bitter, gentle on the sweet, and deeply philosophical. This time Slaughterhouse-Five was a condemnation of humanity. It was dark, very dark, but strangely not depressing. Both Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, and Vonnegut were accepting that humans do horrible things and there is nothing we could do about it. This time it was obvious that Vonnegut believes we have no free will, and the best we can do in life is enjoy those moments when life is pleasant. This time around Slaughterhouse-Five was incredibly stoic.
When I read Slaughterhouse-Five the first time I thought the main goal of the novel was to horrify readers that we bombed Dresden in 1945 and make them outraged. I thought Vonnegut was testifying to an Allied war crime. This time around I realized Vonnegut wasn’t doing that at all. He was completely accepting that we had to bomb Dresden.
I think both times before, I thought Billy Pilgrim was a stand-in for Vonnegut. However, this time it was quite explicit that Billy Pilgrim and Vonnegut were distinctly two different characters in the book. At the end of the audiobook, there was a ten-minute conversation between Vonnegut and another unnamed WWII vet. In that conversation Vonnegut even tells us the name of the man he based Billy Pilgrim on.
The vet Vonnegut was talking to kept trying to praise Vonnegut, and Vonnegut kept deflecting the compliments. But one thing the other guy said stood out. He said that all of Vonnegut’s books were in print because they have multigenerational appeal. Since I have read the book when I was young, middle aged, and old, I can attest to that.
When I read Slaughterhouse-Five back in 1970, I thought the book was a protest. It was Vonnegut telling his readers that we need to change. And back then I thought humans could change. When I read it in 2006, I still had hope that humanity could evolve into something better. But in 2024, I didn’t find Vonnegut protesting at all. Vonnegut advised acceptance. Why didn’t I see that at 18?
Slaughterhouse-Five is neither an antiwar novel, nor even a misanthropic novel. In 2024 it seems obvious that Vonnegut was saying we have no choice but to accept the life we’re given, both as an individual and as a species.
Vonnegut was around 42 when Slaughterhouse-Five was published in 1969. How is it he now seems like a wise old man when I read it at 72 in 2024? Every time I read Slaughterhouse-Five I thought of Kurt Vonnegut as a modern-day Mark Twain. I was very into Twain when I was young, but I pictured him as a bitter old man from his later fiction and autobiography.
I wonder now if Vonnegut eventually turned bitter like Twain. Even though for the 2024 reading many scenes felt bitter, now that I write this, I’m not even sure that’s what Vonnegut intended. Could he have intended a total beatific point of view? I need to rewatch the 2021 documentary about Vonnegut called Unstuck in Time. And I need to read And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles J. Shields.
This time around I’ve been thinking more about the Tralfamadorians, the alien race who kidnaps Billy Pilgrim in a flying saucer and takes him to their home world where they exhibit him in a zoo. The Tralfamadorians don’t see time like we do. Existence is all of one piece.
These aliens are like Zen Masters. Vonnegut uses them as enlightened teachers. But then, he gives a rather pitiful assessment of science fiction with his portrayal of Kilgore Trout. However, in a later novel, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, where Kilgore Trout is again featured, its hero, Elliot Rosewater attends a science fiction convention and gives this speech.
Science fiction didn’t come across so positively in Slaughterhouse-Five. Kilgore Trout wrote dozens of books that never sell. He’s a surly old man who makes his living by managing paperboys. Billy Pilgrim finds Kilgore Trout’s books only by accident. One time he finds four of them in a porn bookstore used as window dressing.
Wikipedia has an illuminating entry on Kilgore Trout. It says Vonnegut based Kilgore on Theodore Sturgeon. I’ve always wanted to know more about Theodore Sturgeon. Sturgeon’s fiction suggests he’s both eccentric and beat.
There are certain writers that haunt me. I think Vonnegut is becoming one of the ghosts that I need to get to know a whole lot better. And I might need to give Catch-22 and M.A.S.H. another read too.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
This is a great essay, thank you
You’re welcome.
I’ve always liked Slaughterhouse-Five, and Vonnegut’s work in general. I think in his repeated use of the phrase “So it goes,” he may be protesting against a passive, submissive approach to life rather than supporting it.
I don’t think his portrayal of science fiction in his character Kilgore Trout was disparaging. Trout seems to me moving rather than merely pathetic. In any case, what interests me about Vonnegut’s novels is not just that he makes use of science fiction themes (time travel, etc.), but is interested in science fiction in itself. In God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Slaughterhouse-Five, the major characters include a science fiction writer (Kilgore Trout) and science fiction fans–Eliot Rosewater and Billy Pilgrim. This seems to me unusual in contemporary fiction.
Another aspect of Slaughterhouse-Five that interested me is the strong hint that Billy Pilgrim’s extraterrestrial adventures are a figment of his imagination, brought on by reading so much SF. Near the end of the novel, Pilgrim is in a bookstore and comes across a novel by Kilgore Trout about a human couple in a zoo on another planet, similar to his own adventures, and realizes that he had read it many years ago. It may be this reading that gave rise to delusions of being kidnapped by Tralfamadorians,
Vonnegut says “so it goes” every time he mentions someone dying. I felt it was his way of saying, “that’s the way it is.” I didn’t see it as being passive but accepting in a Buddhist sense.
Kilgore Trout is presented mostly as a Beat-type character. He overcomes the tragedies of life by writing about far out ideas. Kilgore Trout is existential. Although, he’s shown conning the paperboys, which is kind of pathetic.
Your suggestion that Billy is delusional about the aliens and time travel is an interesting idea. I didn’t read it that way, but I’ll think about it the next time I reread SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE. It is a logical idea.
This is a fantastic post. I have only read Slaughterhouse-Five once. It was about a decade ago. Perhaps I’m due another go around.
If you do reread it, come back and post a comment about your current reaction.
I really enjoyed this post. I’m also embarrassed to say I have never read these books, although everyone has heard of Slaughterhouse-Five. Now I’m just unable to focus on a long read..age, I suppose.
I like both views of “so it goes” with basically no free will and the long cosmic view of a very long journey that appeals more to me.
I also think our interpretation of books or movies changes as we change with age and is not unexpected.
Man is a crazy mess living on an insignificant beautiful planet in a magnificent universe. The really really big picture doesn’t matter. The big picture is the era we all live through with its horrors and wonders and the little picture is our daily individual lives and what we make of it, not as in success, but in acceptance and any joy we can squeeze from it.
I listen to a lot of books because I have trouble with my eyes. And audiobooks are a fantastic way to “read.” However, it does take some practice to get good at listening to books. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE is a very short book, about 5-6 hours.
Vonnegut uses the “so it goes” phrase whenever he mentions someone dying. After a while, you realize that a lot of people have died in this book.
Speaking of Mark Twain. I assume you’ve read “Letters From the Earth. That I did read and loved it!
Yes, I read LETTERS FROM THE EARTH when I was about 20, during my period of reading biographies of Twain. That’s when I discovered his bitterness. I need to reread Twain, like I’m doing with Vonnegut.
Is it bitterness or just dismay at the human race…
The Vonnegut novel that haunts me is MOTHER NIGHT. It’s classified as a Dark Comedy, but it is so much more than that!
for what it’s worth: i read MASH in the summer of 1970; i caught the film the following winter (two nights after i saw BREWSTER MCCLOUD), which turned me into a robert altman acolyte for the duration of his career. i was getting into slaughterhouse-five around the same time; i never saw the film. i never read catch-22; i caught the film in the spring of 1972. with the exception of the preflight briefing, i thought it could have been a lot a better written, and i didn’t think that the acting was especially convincing. my reaction to kurt vonnegut was similar to reading richard brautigan and tom robbins. some writers are simply too whimsical for their own goddamn good. in the words of a long-remembered tune b y the old steve miiler band: and so it goes. (i think the song title might have been SEASONS.)
The first story I read from Vonnegut was “Harrison Bergeron”. Then, Slaughterhouse. Then, Breakfast of Champions. Then…Okay, you get the picture. He’s a great author.