Slaughterhouse Five
by Kurt Vonnegut
Summary
Optometrist and former prisoner of war Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time, drifting nonlinearly between his ordinary postwar American life, his abduction by aliens on the planet Tralfamadore, and his firsthand witnessing of the firebombing of Dresden during the Second World War. Vonnegut, who survived the actual bombing as a prisoner of war, fractures conventional narrative to convey trauma's refusal to stay in one place, punctuating the horror with his signature resigned catchphrase, so it goes. The novel became one of the most influential and frequently challenged works of American antiwar fiction.
Historical Context & Significance
The novel lost both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novel to Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, a rare instance of a single book sweeping both of science fiction's top honors in the same year. Vonnegut's novel nonetheless became one of the most widely taught works of American fiction of its era.