Slaughterhouse-Five: Or, the Children's Crusade:... by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

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Launched in November, Dell's Kurt Vonnegut reissue program continues with one of the world's great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous firebombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we... read more

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Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. Billy lives a normal life, he has a wife and kids. He battled in WW2, and now is an optometrist in New York. Before being taken Billy experiences his first time shifting, he sees his whole life flash before his eyes. After being captured and... read more (warning: may contain spoilers)

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Narrator: A witty, satirical voice who is Vonnegut himself
Billy Pilgrim: The main character of the story, a World War II vet who was a POW in the bombing of Dresden. He shifts through time, and is sometimes abducted by aliens.
Roland Weary: Was with Billy in the war. He was obsessed with torture devices and gore. In his dying words he blamed Billy for his death.
Paul Lazzaro: Also blames Billy for Weary's death, and says he can have anyone killed for a thousand dollars.
Kilgore Trout: science fiction writer who Billy meets in an alley way.
Edgar Derby: An older fellow who was a teacher, and wanted to come to war because he couldn't stand seeing all his students go off to war while he wasted away.
Howard W. Campbell, Jr.: A Nazi who was an American and wrote several training documents to help the Germans better understand their enemy. He was a traitor!
Valencia Merble: Billy's wife who dies of carbon monoxide poisoning on her way to visit Billy in the hospital after his plane crash.
Robert Pilgrim: Billy's son who fought in the Green Berets during the Vietnam war.
Barbara Pilgrim: Billy's daughter who thinks her father is crazy and treats him like a child.
Montana Wildhack: Famous movie actress who Billy is put on display with at the zoo on Tralfamadore. Billy has a child with her.
Riles: Add a description of this character.
Eliot Rosewater: Billy's friend who tells him about Kilgore Trout.
Bertram Copeland Rumfoord: He was a Harvard history professor, retired Air Force brigadier general, and millionaire, who shares a hospital room with Billy and asks Billy to tell him stories about his experience in the Dresden Bombing.
Mary O'Hare: Bernard O'Hare's wife and one of the people to whom the book is dedicated
Musketeers: What Roland Weary called himself and the two scouts
Maggie White: a guest at Billy and Valencia's wedding anniversary
Bernard V. O'hare: the narrator's former war comrad

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“And even if the wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.”
“It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. 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?”
“"When a person dies, he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past...all moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist"”
“How nice — to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”
“All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is. Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in amber.”
“The boy was as beautiful as Eve.”
“If everybody would leave him alone for just a little while, he thought, he wouldn't cause anybody anymore trouble. He would turn to steam and float up among the tree tops.”
“So it goes.”
“It was very exciting for her, taking his dignity away in the name of love.”
“Still-if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice.”
“Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.”
“People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore.”
“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”
“You needn't worry about bombs, by the way. Dresden is an open city. It is undefended, and contains no war industries or troop concentrations of any importance.”
“'Did that really happen?' said Maggie White. She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies. Men looked at her and wanted to fill her up with babies right away.”
“...trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.”
Tralfamadorians

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Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.
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“Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.”
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And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human.
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“How nice—to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”
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And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.
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“That’s one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones.”
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the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.”
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“I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren’t going to want to go on living.”
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It was very exciting for her, taking his dignity away in the name of love.
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All this responsibility at such an early age made her a bitchy flibbertigibbet.
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Glossary edit see section history

Salmon Roe: Salmon eggs, better known as red caviar.
Thumbscrew: An instrument of torture consisting of a ring into which the thumb is inserted and a screw that is then tightened gradually, until the bones are shattered.