Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Delacorte - 1969
186 pages

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 Trafalmadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who watches the firebombing of Dresden.

Honestly, at first, I was a little confused reading this novel. That's because chapter one is more like an introduction to the novel, where Vonnegut describes how he poured his life into this novel, but it was truly terrible and jumbled. Vonnegut inserts himself into two more situations, one where he is suffering the consequences of food poisoning and suggests that his brains may be coming out, and again where he says "Oz" as the characters are going to Dresden.

That being said, once it got into the actual novel, it turned wonderful. I was glad to see that it was supposed to be funny, because there were times I disturbed people around me with my laughing. For example, the protagonist Billy Pilgrim is reading the Bible and thinks that the message of the Gospels is: "If you are going to kill someone, make sure it is someone who is not well-connected."

In the beginning, I felt that Slaughterhouse-Five was a little too jumpy with the time-travelling, going from World War II to Pilgrim's childhood to visiting his mother in the nursing home in spans of only a few paragraphs, but then it finally levelled out to focus mainly on its topic: the firebombing of Dresden in World War II.

While I was a bit hesitant to pick up World War II fiction, as it's not exactly my favorite period of historical fiction (that one's actually tough: maybe Black Death in England, the Industrial Revolution, World War I, or Anglo-Saxon times), it is easily wonderful.

Grade: A-

A Clockwork Orange

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
William Heinemann - 1962
192 pages

In a dystopian near-future England, teenage gangs, their members called "droogs", speak a Russified English with some Cockney rhyming slang and Roma and roam the streets at night. One of these such "droogs" is Alex, whose only solace is classical music. Alex gets arrested and is put on a new technique called the "Ludovico Technique", where he is forced to see horrifying images put to the classical music that he so loves.

The book that I read was as it was published in the United Kingdom: with a full twenty-one chapters. The early English versions, including the one that the film is based on, leave out the twenty-first chapter because they felt it had a different tone and American audiences wouldn't like the new version. Twenty or twenty-one chapters, the novella is still wonderful. The Nadsat was difficult to understand at first, and I had to read slowly, but as I went on I got more of it and could pick up the pace and could truly enjoy the book.

Grade: A

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story by George Orwell
Secker and Warburg - August 17, 1945
112 pages

This is a classic tale of humanity awash in totalitarianism. A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. First published during the epoch of Stalinist Russia, today it is clear that wherever and whenever freedom is attacked, and under whatever banner, the cutting clarity and savage comedy of Orwell's masterpiece is a message still ferociously fresh.

(Spoiler level: Minor/nonexistent)

I have read this book more times than I can count. It is my favorite novel. I have done all kinds of projects about this novel. I converted excerpts of this novel into different fonts to see which ones were more readable. I have an Animal Farm t-shirt from Out of Print Clothing (look it up, it's awesome). I quote it frequently. I sing "Beasts of England" when I'm bored. Some people I know think that this obsession is unhealthy, but I don't care.

The first time that I read this book was at a very young age when I thought that it was just a story about animals. The second time I was a few years older and knew that it was supposed to be about Stalinist Russia, but I was still pretty young and ended up overthinking it and searching for a greater meaning that I couldn't find when I was younger. Then I saw the 1959 cartoon animated movie and thought that I really couldn't remember that much about it, so I went back and enjoyed it again, this time being able to make the connections. A time after that I read it to enjoy it as a story, just like when I was six. Now every time I have insomnia I read at least half of it, which really isn't too much when you think about it.

That's what's so great about Animal Farm. You can read it as an animal story and as a metaphor. Not to mention, you can find multiple metaphors in it, as books about the novel show. Yes, it's about Stalinist Russia, but think of the treatment of the female animals on the farm compared to the male animals! You can appreciate Orwell's fiction writing as well as his satire.

As I said, it is truly my favorite novel.


Grade: A+