Slaughterhouse-five

by Kurt Vonnegut

SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE, a best-seller when it was first published in 1969, brought Kurt Vonnegut to prominence as a major voice in American fiction. Vonnegut was a POW held in Dresden in 1945 when the city was attacked by American bombers and virtually obliterated, leaving more than 130,000 people dead. He uses that event as the climax of this satirical and horrifying anti-war novel, in which a young man named Billy Pilgrim experiences much of what Vonnegut himself saw during the war. Unlike his creator however, Pilgrim has become "unstuck in time" following his abduction by aliens thus affording him the opportunity to travel freely across time, visiting different periods in his life in an attempt to sort out his complicated history. The book's anti-war stance, one reason for its success with the counterculture of the Vietnam War generation, is based on Vonnegut's premise that the dehumanization of people is to be avoided at all costs, and it is this stance that accounts for the novel's continued popularity.

Editions of Slaughterhouse-five

ISBN 9780613647885	Binding/Format Prebinding	Publisher Bt Bound	Date 2004	Price None Available
ISBN 9780224618014	Binding/Format Book	Publisher Cape	Date 1970	Price $75.00	Good
ISBN 9780886461300	Binding/Format Audio Cassette	Publisher Dh Audio	Date 1986	Price $4.28	Good
ISBN 9780385312080	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Delacorte Pr	Date 1994	Price £4.00	Very Good- in Very Good- dust jacket
ISBN 9780783883700	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Thorndike Pr	Date 1998	Price $28.67	Used - Good
ISBN 9781433269691	Binding/Format Compact Disc	Publisher Blackstone Audio Inc	Date 2009	Price $56.45	NEW
ISBN 9781433269684	Binding/Format Audio Cassette	Publisher Blackstone Audio Inc	Date 2009	Price $42.99	NEW
ISBN 9781433269721	Binding/Format MP3 CD	Publisher Blackstone Audio Inc	Date 2009	Price $21.42	NEW
ISBN 9780844663661	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Peter Smith Pub Inc	Date 1989	Price $41.50	New
ISBN 9780886464950	Binding/Format Audio Cassette	Publisher Dh Audio	Date 1999	Price $27.94	Very Good
ISBN 9781559949255	Binding/Format Audio Cassette	Publisher Harperaudio	Date 1994	Price None Available
ISBN 9780808514572	Binding/Format Prebinding	Publisher Bt Bound	Date 1999	Price $8.82	Used - Good
ISBN 9780385289375	Binding/Format Hardcover	Publisher Bantam Dell Pub Group	Date 1923	Price None Available
ISBN 9780060573775	Binding/Format Compact Disc	Publisher Harperaudio	Date 2003	Price $21.22	NEW
ISBN 9780060564926	Binding/Format Audio Cassette	Publisher Harperaudio	Date 2003	Price $21.71	NEW

Publisher Notes

Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes 'unstuck in time' after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.

Slaughterhouse-Five is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is also as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch-22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it unique poignancy -- and humor.

Media Reviews

"What I...applaud is the marvelous comic scenes with the British prisoners of war; the control in the war scenes; the understated bitterness with which he handles the American soldiers....When Vonnegut stops preaching and is funny, I take him very seriously."