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

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Description

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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Summary

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 optomitrist 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)

Cast of Characters/Important People

Narrator: A witty, satirical voice who is in some ways a representation of Vonnegut himself
Billy Pilgrim: The main charactor of the story, a WW2 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
Valencia Merble: Billy's wife who dies of carbon monixcide poisoning on her way to visit Billy in the hospital after his plane crash.
Robert Pilgrim: Billy's son who faught in the Green Barets 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.
Wild Bob: A general who is dying of fever and who tells Billy and the other soliders to call him wild Bob, which is what he always wanted his men to call him.
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 experince in the Dresden Bombing.

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Memorable Quotes

“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.”
“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.”
“How nice — to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.”

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Glossary

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.