Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 (S5 from here on out) is the best book I’ve ever read during my 40+ years of reading. If I had to describe S5 in one word that word would be perfect.
Prior to reading S5 I had often heard people saying this book or that book changed their lives. I’d never understood how a book could do that until I read S5.
Needless to say, it’s changed my life.
Not in any dramatic way, but it changed what I thought good writing was. As a writer, it completely changed my perception of what one could do with the written word. It’s hard to describe except by saying that once you have witnessed your conception of perfection in a particular form, your perspective of that form changes, whether that be in the consumption of it or in its creation.
As far as the book itself goes, S5 isn’t for those looking for an escape into a world of action/mystery etc. It is definitely a thinking man’s book. It’s an Oscar Award vs Summer Blockbuster type of thing, with S5 being one of the former.
S5 is both one of the funniest and most heart wrenching stories I’ve ever read. Vonnegut’s writing, his style, just moves you.
You know those moments when you read a line or two that particularly moves you to where you want to highlight it or write it down somewhere? My copy of S5 has yellow throughout it. I can remember first reading it and there were so many instances where I’d stop and just reread what I’d just read, amazed by the power of the words. In fact, the Introduction or prologue (I can’t remember which the beginning part of S5 is called.) is so full of those instances that I read it through a second time before proceeding with the rest of the book my first time reading it.
If there was an award for best chapter of a book, that first part of S5 would take my vote with nothing even coming close to competing with it.
In fact, to those wondering if S5 is for you; just read that opening part. If your anything like me you will be hooked.