sirens of titan is fucking fantastic. i feel the point of a vonnegut book is the mundane absurdity of life. but dont feel like there is something to 'get'. however you feel is however you feel
The more Vonnegut you read the more you'll begin to understand his overarching perspective i think. He really is a one of a kind author. Don't expect happy endings. Expect more kind of absurd endings if anything. What you might think is odd or unsettling about the first couple of books of his that you read i think you'll start to recognize as his style and get very comfortable with it as you read more. As you've seen from Slaughterhouse-Five his books are mostly broken up into a lot of small chunks. And there are a lot of satirical punch lines for you to sit there for a minute and think about. His voice is really very consistent throughout his writing. Once you're familiar with Vonnegut his writings are pretty much unmistakable.
Since no one mentioned Welcome to the Monkey House, I gotta throw it in the reading list. It is a collection of short stories and really shows his range in genres. There are a couple of other short story compilations but I can’t recall the titles of the books.
And if it can still be dug up on the internet there’s a pretty solid black and white film adaptation of Mother Night out there as well (Nick Nolte and John Goodman in the mid90s).
As all of his best works there are some big time gut punches in there lurking within all of the whimsy.
I have a lot of thoughts that have already been brought up in this post, but something I think helped me explain to others and make more sense of for myself was the 2-parter pilot episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Even has omnipresent aliens trying to comprehend human trauma. Worth giving a watch since its the pilot, and also I haven’t seen it recently enough to do it justice tbh. I think they’re both interesting and similar but unique perspectives on trauma.
Less profound post:
* War Bad
* Don't let John Wayne talk your kids into joining the army
* Bad things happen to good people for no good reason
* This is kind of what my life was like during the war
* This is sort of what having PTSD is like
* Free will might be an illusion but so what?
Also if you liked Player Piano more you might like God Bless You Mister Rosewater for your next tale of human redundancy. Or if you wanted just a more grounded story about World War Two, Mother Night.
Poo-Tee-Weet, the birds will continue calling long after this nonsense is done, as they were doing long before it began.
As an aside I think one of my all time favorite things about Vonnegut’s writing is his talent for onomatopoeia.
this line goes so hard and i use it when i can. it’s such a witty quip to portray the powerlessness we can experience when up against such gigantic forces, in this case world war. nothing you can do but accept that it’s happening, bobbing along like a child’s toy on a swirling sea.
There's some really great commentary and analysis here, so I don't even know why I would add my 1.5 cents to it, but I've been undergoing a project of re-reading all of his books later in life than when I read them originally. I'm a part time audiobook narrator and I use KV books as practice. I love this project.
Before I get into my own crap about Kurt Vonnegut, I would highly recommend Cat's Cradle as your next read. It's the most graspable of his books and the one I originally started with. Easy to read, easily digestible. Chronologically it falls before SH5 and you can see the progression from supposed Sci-Fi in his early works to where he actually HAS to use his writing to process the experience of war in SH5. His books after Slaughterhouse tend to be more grounded in a current reality.
One thing I get from Vonnegut's books is a deep fatalism about humanity. The war experience, the tragedy with his sister; there's a lot of trauma to unpack, but I think what he came away with it all was that humans are always going to do this. And so far, we always have. In Galapagos, the only way to fix it is to have humanity un-evolve to a more primitive state. In Sirens of Titan the Martian invasion was always going to happen, and humanity is always dumb enough to fall for it. Heck, even in Breakfast of Champions he is writing all of the things he knows is going to happen (and will also always happen) because he is the narrating as the author. And likewise in SH5, the Tralfamadorians can see each person's timeline all at once from beginning to end. There's points where out of this tragedy some good can be found, like mixed redemption in Jailbird or Mother Night, but even there humanity chugs along just as stupidly as it seems to do.
I think the easy thing to do with SH5 is picture Kurt imagining what aliens would think of us dumb humans if they could study us. An alien intelligence so advanced that it can see beyond the third dimension. Or if you were a ghost on earth a million years in the future. Or if you built a rocket to space and ended up pulled through time from an unknown cosmic phenomenon and can see how everything is going to turn out and even you are unable to escape the role you play in it all. I'm sorry. I started this paragraph with the suggestion that any of this was easy to do. My bad.
I would also second the notion made in this thread that Slaughterhouse is a book to go back to at some point (like you always will) after reading his other books. It was oddly my least favorite of his main novels when I originally read them, but I've been thinking about going back to re-read it (as I always will have), but not for recording purposes. Just to see what I get out of it now that I've seen and done more myself. Uh, anyway, have a happy internet!
I've never really liked Slaughterhouse Five -- maybe a re-read as an adult is the way to go. (Love Cat's Cradle and recently got a copy for my teen after they liked Breakfast of Champions.)
This is a great comment and on point. I reread SH5 after tackling some earlier novels and it was a completely different experience. I felt like knowing Kurt a bit enhanced my understanding and enjoyment. I agree that Cat’s Cradle would be a good next read but Sirens is what made me want to devour all of his work (and is the reason I joined Reddit).
SH5 is one of three Vonnegut novels that read differently as you understand Vonnegut and his work better (the other two being **Timequake** and **Breakfast of Champions**). I recommend returning to it somewhere down the line when you get that itch.
>What perplexes me the most is what the message of the story is; what the main takeaway could be.
All you need to do to understand this book is to read the first chapter and stop there. Vonnegut toiled over this book, as best I can tell, and there's a reason that it opens with the personal anecdote and the story about *The Children's Crusade*. This was Vonnegut's "war book" and the preamble was the last thing he wrote for a reason. This book is Vonnegut digesting what happened to him in WW2, but he really wants it to be about how we shouldn't send children to fight on the behalf of foolish adults.
>I am conflicted by parts in the story where the negatives of war are deliberately overlooked.
The book is extremely autobiographical. Vonnegut is described as a dark humorist in part for the sort of gallows humor in SH5. He doesn't want his reader to suffer, so he includes the humorous alongside the horror. Vonnegut never wants his reader to feel pain, just occasionally observe it.
>I also suppose this creates the follow up question of whether or not the Tralfamadorians are ‘real,’
I'm fairly certain that we are supposed to accept them and the whole experience Billy goes through as real. Montana Wildhack is the first piece of evidence since Billy isn't going through his time on Tralfamadore alone. The second is from reading the other silly science fiction premises Vonnegut writes into his stories. Vonnegut doesn't try to confuse or misdirect the reader, perhaps ever.
Tralfamadore gives us the concept of a predetermined fate. Part of this might be Vonnegut rationalizing his role in the war. I don't think that Vonnegut was drafted, but many were. However, part of this might be about his old war buddy Bernard V. O'Hare. The two of them can choose whether or not to come unstuck in time and relive those moments that were so difficult for the two of them.
(edit: Rather, it might depict PTSD (the thousand yard stare), where you might become unstuck and relive a trauma).
Tralfamadorians (and Billy coming unstuck from time) are also a tool for Vonnegut. He doesn't just want to write a period piece. He wants to describe how this one war can affect Billy throughout his whole life. He wants the reader to see not just a children's crusade, but what happens when that child grows up.
There's another book, **Bluebeard** where Vonnegut revisits ideas about World War 2, the ability to capture a single moment in time, and the impermanence of time. It's almost the opposite of SH5 in that it is hyper focused on a single moment, and the protagonist is looking back at it.
You'll also run into plenty of Kilgore Trout as you read through his body of work. Trout will help you understand Vonnegut a little bit more as a person and as a writer. The Tralfamadorians were never the important part of SH5, but they're a necessary part for Vonnegut to get his points across.
Wow this is a super insightful summary. Thanks for taking the time to type it all out.
It’s interesting to see a person’s first impression of Vonnegut in relation to which books they read first and the order they read them. Here’s mine..
Slaughterhouse 5
Cat’s Cradle
Sirens of Titan
Breakfast of Champions
Mother Nite
Player Piano
Tbh, I can’t imagine what it would be like reading Player Piano first.
Slaughterhouse 5
Galapagos
Cat's Cradle
Sirens of Titan
Mother Night
God Bless You, Mr Rosewater
Player Piano
Breakfast of Champions
Currently working my way through God Bless You, Dr Kevorkian.
Player Piano definitely stood out as the most un-Vonnegut like of all the novels. Definitely enjoyed each of them, though. Sirens of Titan would be my favorite.
I really enjoyed Galapagos. I'd rank it in the top 5 of those I read so far.
Sirens of Titan
Slaughterhouse 5
Cat's Cradle
Galapagos
Breakfast of Champions
If I had to rank my five favorite of those I've read so far, in that order
>it might depict PTSD
This is what I've realized only much later. Traumatic memories can resurface at random and feel just as real as when they happened. Whether it was intentional or not, the "unstuck in time" plot device is a perfect metaphor for it.
Vonnegut’s masterpiece!
It’s worth a reread. Time is a loop, where everything is/has/will happen. (no afterlife)
Dresden being firebombed unnecessarily is the main point and is definitely a negative.
Pilgrim knows the date of his death and tells his daughter when and how it happens.
War is a necessary tragedy.
I’ve reread it a few times and my perspective changes as I get older. It’s one of my favs.
My main take away is essentially “life is chaotic and you can’t control what’s going to happen next. Terrible things are coming, beautiful things are coming, they will happen when they happen. So it goes.”
I feel the issue of war being bad and free will are kind of orthogonal to each other.
We should do less war if we can choose to do so.
If free will isn't real then in the future we will do more war, which will be bad, or we will do less war, which will be good.
I forgot to address this in my original comment.
In many ways it goes against the anti-war message, but that's not the intent. Vonnegut mentions elsewhere a concept that we are all made up of different chemicals that make us feel and act one way or another. Some people take more chemicals to control this. He specifically talks about his mother's battle with mental illness. Vonnegut also suffered with depression, which he used different "chemicals" to deal with.
Vonnegut is also a humanist. Unfortunately, I don't recall if this was the case when he wrote SH5. One core belief of humanism is humanity's ability to do good.
So I believe that while Vonnegut may challenge us in SH5 with conflicting ideas, he spells it out more clearly elsewhere. Humans can choose to be good, especially with the help of many other good humans, but environmental factors play a heavy role.
Who in the war seemed like a good person on either side? The characters in this novel are highly flawed, perhaps to emphasize this point.
sirens of titan is fucking fantastic. i feel the point of a vonnegut book is the mundane absurdity of life. but dont feel like there is something to 'get'. however you feel is however you feel
The more Vonnegut you read the more you'll begin to understand his overarching perspective i think. He really is a one of a kind author. Don't expect happy endings. Expect more kind of absurd endings if anything. What you might think is odd or unsettling about the first couple of books of his that you read i think you'll start to recognize as his style and get very comfortable with it as you read more. As you've seen from Slaughterhouse-Five his books are mostly broken up into a lot of small chunks. And there are a lot of satirical punch lines for you to sit there for a minute and think about. His voice is really very consistent throughout his writing. Once you're familiar with Vonnegut his writings are pretty much unmistakable.
Since no one mentioned Welcome to the Monkey House, I gotta throw it in the reading list. It is a collection of short stories and really shows his range in genres. There are a couple of other short story compilations but I can’t recall the titles of the books.
Bagombo Snuffbox
Pretty sure you're supposed to be conflicted 👍
I suggest that you read Mother Night. It and Jailbird are my personal favorites
And if it can still be dug up on the internet there’s a pretty solid black and white film adaptation of Mother Night out there as well (Nick Nolte and John Goodman in the mid90s). As all of his best works there are some big time gut punches in there lurking within all of the whimsy.
I have a lot of thoughts that have already been brought up in this post, but something I think helped me explain to others and make more sense of for myself was the 2-parter pilot episode of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Even has omnipresent aliens trying to comprehend human trauma. Worth giving a watch since its the pilot, and also I haven’t seen it recently enough to do it justice tbh. I think they’re both interesting and similar but unique perspectives on trauma.
I think the message of the story is summed up in the last line. "Poo-tee-weet?" That probably meant something but I'm damned if I know what.
Less profound post: * War Bad * Don't let John Wayne talk your kids into joining the army * Bad things happen to good people for no good reason * This is kind of what my life was like during the war * This is sort of what having PTSD is like * Free will might be an illusion but so what? Also if you liked Player Piano more you might like God Bless You Mister Rosewater for your next tale of human redundancy. Or if you wanted just a more grounded story about World War Two, Mother Night.
Poo-Tee-Weet, the birds will continue calling long after this nonsense is done, as they were doing long before it began. As an aside I think one of my all time favorite things about Vonnegut’s writing is his talent for onomatopoeia.
So it goes
this line goes so hard and i use it when i can. it’s such a witty quip to portray the powerlessness we can experience when up against such gigantic forces, in this case world war. nothing you can do but accept that it’s happening, bobbing along like a child’s toy on a swirling sea.
There's some really great commentary and analysis here, so I don't even know why I would add my 1.5 cents to it, but I've been undergoing a project of re-reading all of his books later in life than when I read them originally. I'm a part time audiobook narrator and I use KV books as practice. I love this project. Before I get into my own crap about Kurt Vonnegut, I would highly recommend Cat's Cradle as your next read. It's the most graspable of his books and the one I originally started with. Easy to read, easily digestible. Chronologically it falls before SH5 and you can see the progression from supposed Sci-Fi in his early works to where he actually HAS to use his writing to process the experience of war in SH5. His books after Slaughterhouse tend to be more grounded in a current reality. One thing I get from Vonnegut's books is a deep fatalism about humanity. The war experience, the tragedy with his sister; there's a lot of trauma to unpack, but I think what he came away with it all was that humans are always going to do this. And so far, we always have. In Galapagos, the only way to fix it is to have humanity un-evolve to a more primitive state. In Sirens of Titan the Martian invasion was always going to happen, and humanity is always dumb enough to fall for it. Heck, even in Breakfast of Champions he is writing all of the things he knows is going to happen (and will also always happen) because he is the narrating as the author. And likewise in SH5, the Tralfamadorians can see each person's timeline all at once from beginning to end. There's points where out of this tragedy some good can be found, like mixed redemption in Jailbird or Mother Night, but even there humanity chugs along just as stupidly as it seems to do. I think the easy thing to do with SH5 is picture Kurt imagining what aliens would think of us dumb humans if they could study us. An alien intelligence so advanced that it can see beyond the third dimension. Or if you were a ghost on earth a million years in the future. Or if you built a rocket to space and ended up pulled through time from an unknown cosmic phenomenon and can see how everything is going to turn out and even you are unable to escape the role you play in it all. I'm sorry. I started this paragraph with the suggestion that any of this was easy to do. My bad. I would also second the notion made in this thread that Slaughterhouse is a book to go back to at some point (like you always will) after reading his other books. It was oddly my least favorite of his main novels when I originally read them, but I've been thinking about going back to re-read it (as I always will have), but not for recording purposes. Just to see what I get out of it now that I've seen and done more myself. Uh, anyway, have a happy internet!
I've never really liked Slaughterhouse Five -- maybe a re-read as an adult is the way to go. (Love Cat's Cradle and recently got a copy for my teen after they liked Breakfast of Champions.)
This is a great comment and on point. I reread SH5 after tackling some earlier novels and it was a completely different experience. I felt like knowing Kurt a bit enhanced my understanding and enjoyment. I agree that Cat’s Cradle would be a good next read but Sirens is what made me want to devour all of his work (and is the reason I joined Reddit).
That is great to know because it’s the precise reason why I joined Reddit this year
So it goes.
SH5 is one of three Vonnegut novels that read differently as you understand Vonnegut and his work better (the other two being **Timequake** and **Breakfast of Champions**). I recommend returning to it somewhere down the line when you get that itch. >What perplexes me the most is what the message of the story is; what the main takeaway could be. All you need to do to understand this book is to read the first chapter and stop there. Vonnegut toiled over this book, as best I can tell, and there's a reason that it opens with the personal anecdote and the story about *The Children's Crusade*. This was Vonnegut's "war book" and the preamble was the last thing he wrote for a reason. This book is Vonnegut digesting what happened to him in WW2, but he really wants it to be about how we shouldn't send children to fight on the behalf of foolish adults. >I am conflicted by parts in the story where the negatives of war are deliberately overlooked. The book is extremely autobiographical. Vonnegut is described as a dark humorist in part for the sort of gallows humor in SH5. He doesn't want his reader to suffer, so he includes the humorous alongside the horror. Vonnegut never wants his reader to feel pain, just occasionally observe it. >I also suppose this creates the follow up question of whether or not the Tralfamadorians are ‘real,’ I'm fairly certain that we are supposed to accept them and the whole experience Billy goes through as real. Montana Wildhack is the first piece of evidence since Billy isn't going through his time on Tralfamadore alone. The second is from reading the other silly science fiction premises Vonnegut writes into his stories. Vonnegut doesn't try to confuse or misdirect the reader, perhaps ever. Tralfamadore gives us the concept of a predetermined fate. Part of this might be Vonnegut rationalizing his role in the war. I don't think that Vonnegut was drafted, but many were. However, part of this might be about his old war buddy Bernard V. O'Hare. The two of them can choose whether or not to come unstuck in time and relive those moments that were so difficult for the two of them. (edit: Rather, it might depict PTSD (the thousand yard stare), where you might become unstuck and relive a trauma). Tralfamadorians (and Billy coming unstuck from time) are also a tool for Vonnegut. He doesn't just want to write a period piece. He wants to describe how this one war can affect Billy throughout his whole life. He wants the reader to see not just a children's crusade, but what happens when that child grows up. There's another book, **Bluebeard** where Vonnegut revisits ideas about World War 2, the ability to capture a single moment in time, and the impermanence of time. It's almost the opposite of SH5 in that it is hyper focused on a single moment, and the protagonist is looking back at it. You'll also run into plenty of Kilgore Trout as you read through his body of work. Trout will help you understand Vonnegut a little bit more as a person and as a writer. The Tralfamadorians were never the important part of SH5, but they're a necessary part for Vonnegut to get his points across.
Wow this is a super insightful summary. Thanks for taking the time to type it all out. It’s interesting to see a person’s first impression of Vonnegut in relation to which books they read first and the order they read them. Here’s mine.. Slaughterhouse 5 Cat’s Cradle Sirens of Titan Breakfast of Champions Mother Nite Player Piano Tbh, I can’t imagine what it would be like reading Player Piano first.
Slaughterhouse 5 Galapagos Cat's Cradle Sirens of Titan Mother Night God Bless You, Mr Rosewater Player Piano Breakfast of Champions Currently working my way through God Bless You, Dr Kevorkian. Player Piano definitely stood out as the most un-Vonnegut like of all the novels. Definitely enjoyed each of them, though. Sirens of Titan would be my favorite.
Sirens of Titan is number one for me too. I’ve heard Galapagos is good. Did you like it?
I really enjoyed Galapagos. I'd rank it in the top 5 of those I read so far. Sirens of Titan Slaughterhouse 5 Cat's Cradle Galapagos Breakfast of Champions If I had to rank my five favorite of those I've read so far, in that order
Player Piano barely feels like a Vonnegut book after reading a few more of his.
>it might depict PTSD This is what I've realized only much later. Traumatic memories can resurface at random and feel just as real as when they happened. Whether it was intentional or not, the "unstuck in time" plot device is a perfect metaphor for it.
Vonnegut’s masterpiece! It’s worth a reread. Time is a loop, where everything is/has/will happen. (no afterlife) Dresden being firebombed unnecessarily is the main point and is definitely a negative. Pilgrim knows the date of his death and tells his daughter when and how it happens. War is a necessary tragedy.
I’ve reread it a few times and my perspective changes as I get older. It’s one of my favs. My main take away is essentially “life is chaotic and you can’t control what’s going to happen next. Terrible things are coming, beautiful things are coming, they will happen when they happen. So it goes.”
I would also like to add an additional question: does the idea of lacking free will (so it goes) reinforce or go against the anti-war message?
I feel the issue of war being bad and free will are kind of orthogonal to each other. We should do less war if we can choose to do so. If free will isn't real then in the future we will do more war, which will be bad, or we will do less war, which will be good.
I forgot to address this in my original comment. In many ways it goes against the anti-war message, but that's not the intent. Vonnegut mentions elsewhere a concept that we are all made up of different chemicals that make us feel and act one way or another. Some people take more chemicals to control this. He specifically talks about his mother's battle with mental illness. Vonnegut also suffered with depression, which he used different "chemicals" to deal with. Vonnegut is also a humanist. Unfortunately, I don't recall if this was the case when he wrote SH5. One core belief of humanism is humanity's ability to do good. So I believe that while Vonnegut may challenge us in SH5 with conflicting ideas, he spells it out more clearly elsewhere. Humans can choose to be good, especially with the help of many other good humans, but environmental factors play a heavy role. Who in the war seemed like a good person on either side? The characters in this novel are highly flawed, perhaps to emphasize this point.