Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade:
A Duty-Dance with Death is a satirical novel by Kurt Vonnegut and is generally
recognized as his most influential and popular work. Set around World War II,
the novels tells of the story of Billy Pilgrim, a chaplain’s assistant, and his
experiences and journeys through time. Billy sees when, how, and why he will
die, resulting in his becoming fatalistic. The refrain “so it goes” is used
when death, dying, and mortality occur and it appears in the book 106 times.
Additionally, the novel can be read as semi-autobiographical: Vonnegut was
present during the firebombing of Dresden, a central event in the novel.
Shortly after publication, Slaughterhouse-Five
was nominated for two best novel recognitions, a Nebula Award and a Hugo Award,
though it lost both to Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. The Modern
Library ranked Slaughterhouse-Five eighteenth on its list of the “100 Best”
English-language novels of the 20th century in 1998. It is also listed in TIME’s
“100 Best Novels” (since 1923).
However, mainly due to its irreverent tone and
obscene content, Slaughterhouse-Five has been the subject of many attempts at
censorship. The novel treats one of the most horrific massacres in European
history—the firebombing of Dresden—with mock-serious humor and clear antiwar
sentiment. It also depicts sexuality to a revolutionary extent as one of the
first literary acknowledgments that homosexual men, referred to in the novel as
“fairies,” were among the victims of the Nazi Holocaust. Thus,
Slaughterhouse-Five is listed in the American Library Association's list of the
“Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–1999” as well as the ALA's “Most
Frequently Challenged Books of 2000–2009.”
The novel has been adapted more than a handful
of times, most notably a film adaptation by the same name made in 1972.
Although the film did poorly in the box office, it was critically praised,
winning the Prix du Jury at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. ...
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