2014 Book Goal: 52 (mostly non-fiction)
2014 Books Read: 12 (67% non-fiction)
I don’t know what prompted me to read Slaughterhouse Five or how I managed to live this long without reading it. I’m not saying it was such a great book that I should have read it earlier, just that it is an American classic and I’m just surprised I never did.
First, I had no idea it was even science fiction. I had a lot of confusion between Slaughterhouse Five and the Jungle. I just assumed both were exposes on the meat-packing industry. Being an avid science fiction fan, I had certainly heard about Kurt Vonnegut, but just never figured it out until now.
I was surprised to discover it was indeed sci-fi and in fact, it felt a lot like Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when the Tralfamadorians showed up. I was also intrigued enough about the story of the Dresden firebombing to actually do some subsequent research into that.
As a vehicle to inform the public about what allied forced did in an unpublicized segment of World War II, it does a great job. As a narrative for a quirky sci-fi adventure story, it does a great job. As a precursor to the current trend of films jumping all over in their timeline, it was revolutionary. If it were just one of those things though, I would have said, “meh,” and moved on. Delivering on all these however, I really enjoyed it.
I think I may look into some more classics I may have overlooked.
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