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
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Review by Andyrew for Easy Readers – English – Level 4: Slaughterhouse Five (German Edition)
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Slaughter House Five deserves its reputation of being a piece of great American literature. The book follows a young man, Billy Pilgrim through his life. Billy believes aliens, tralfamadorians to be exact, have abducted him. We assume that it’s through these aliens that he learns to time travel, a skill he frequently uses. In the book Pilgrim bounces around time to all the various portions of his life, many times returning to World War II where he was captured, taken prisoner, and held in slaughterhouse five in Dresden, Germany. He seems to be defined by this moment in his life as he frequently returns there. If you know anything about Vonnegut, you know that he too was held in Dresden, Germany when the city was firebombed. This is the major setup for this antiwar novel as Dresden was home to over 100,000 persons while at the same time Dresden didn’t have any industry lending itself to the war effort. Obviously you wander, “Then why was this city bombed? What advantage came from killing well over 100,000 thousand civilians?”One of the major themes of the book is fate. The prayer of serenity appears twice in the book stating that we need to change the things we can and be wise enough to know which things we cannot change. Also the Tralfamadorians speak of fate. They say they know how the universe is going to end, but they do nothing to stop it. Vonnegut seems to say that yes, war is one of those things we cannot avoid, but we need to change the things we can about it, like the atrocious bombing of Dresden.Overall, the book’s message is clear, and Vonnegut delivers his message in a very accessible way. The story of Billy Pilgrim is enjoyable to read, and contains more than dry philosophy that some antiwar novels are filled with.
Review by Dennis Littrell for Easy Readers – English – Level 4: Slaughterhouse Five (German Edition)
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I know this novel fairly well having read it several times (once aloud to my students). It is about all time being always present if only we knew, or could realize it, or had a sense about time in the same way we have senses for light and sound.
It is also about the Allied fire bombings of Dresden which killed more people than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. (And so it goes.) Kurt Vonnegut begins as though writing a memoir and advises us that “All of this happened, more or less…” Of course it did not, and yet, as with all real fiction, it is psychologically true. His protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, an unlikely hero, somewhat in the manner of unlikely heroes to come like Forest Gump and the hero of Jerzy Kosinski’s Being There, transcends time and space as he bumbles along. This is a comedie noire–a “black comedy”–not to be confused with “film noir,” a cinematic genre in which the bad guys may win or at least they are made sympathetic. In comedie noire the events are horrific but the style is light-hearted. What the genres have in common is a non-heroic protagonist.
This is also a totally original work written in a most relaxing style that fuses the elements of science fiction with realism. It is easy to read (which is one of the reasons it can be found on the high school curriculum in our public schools). It is sharply satirical, lampooning not only our moral superiority, our egocentricity, but our limited understanding of time and space. And of course it is an anti-war novel in the tradition of All Quiet on the Western Front and Johnny Got His Gun.
Vonnegut’s view of time in this novel is like the stratification of an upcropping of rock: time past and time present are there for us to see, but also there is time future. Billy Pilgrim learns from the Tralfamadorians (who kidnapped him in 1967) that we are actually timeless beings who experience what we call the past, present and future again and again. And so Billy goes back to the war and forward to his marriage, and to Tralfamadore again and again. He learns that the Tralfamadorians see the stars not as bright spots of light but as “rarefied, luminous spaghetti” and human beings as “great millepedes with babies’ legs at one end and old people’s legs at the other.” So time is not a river, nor is it a snake with its tail in its mouth. It is omnipresent, yet some things occur before and some after, but always they occur again.
And so it goes.
What I admire most about this most admirable novel is how easily and naturally Vonnegut controls the narrative and how effortlessly seems its construction. It is almost as if Vonnegut sat down one day and let his thoughts wander, and when he was through, here is this novel.
In a sense, Vonnegut invented a new novelistic genre, combining fantasy with realism, touched by fictionalized memoir, penned in a comedic mode as horror is overtaken by a kind of fatalistic yet humorous view of life. Note here the appearance of Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut’s alter-ego, the science fiction writer who is said to have invented Tralfamadore.
Bottom line: read this without preconceptions and read it without regard to the usual constraints. Just let it flow and accept it for what it is, a juxtaposition of several genres, a tale of fiction, that–as fiction should–transcends time and space.
Review by for Easy Readers – English – Level 4: Slaughterhouse Five (German Edition)
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This novel is essential in many ways. It is undoubtedly one of the best-written, most well respected novels of the 20th century (No. 6 on the list that was a compilation of all the other lists) and is, therefore, essential to your understanding of 20th century fiction. If you have never read Vonnegut, this book should be the first one you read: it is the most famous and one of the best and really captures the essence of Vonnegut. Finally, despite its literary merit, this is a FUN book to read. You will laugh, you will think, but, most of all, you will enjoy reading it and you will finish it FAST.This should be your introduction to Vonnegut. I’ve found that true Vonnegut fans don’t often choose Slaughterhouse-Five as their favorite, but, instead choose one of Vonnegut’s other wonders (Breakfast of Champions, Cat’s Cradle, Sirens of Titan, etc.). I think that most would agree that this is a good jumping off point, just as, in music, people often start with Greatest hits albums and then work from there.Only Vonnegut could make such a strange premise believable and emotional. The book shifts time and place from paragraph to paragraph without warning. It is about aliens and WWII. It all works so perfectly, however and is so profound to those who read carefully. Billy Pilgrim is one of the great characters in all of literature.Don’t be scared off by aliens and the weird premise. It works better than 99% of so-called “normal” books. Absolutely ESSENTIAL.thanks {{{milo}}}
Review by Michael J. Mazza for Easy Readers – English – Level 4: Slaughterhouse Five (German Edition)
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Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Slaughterhouse Five” is one of those great books that defies easy classification. A blend of science fiction, satire, and war fiction, it is both fun and grim. The book tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, an optometrist, World War II veteran, and apparent UFO abductee who becomes “unstuck in time.” We accompany Billy back and forth from his wartime experiences to his encounters with aliens and to other events in his remarkable life.”Slaughterhouse” is greatly enlivened by a colorful, richly imagined cast of supporting characters: American-turned-Nazi Howard W. Campbell, movie star Montana Wildhack, and more. But probably the most resonant of these amazing creations is Kilgore Trout, the underappreciated science fiction writer.The book has an intriguing structure. Vonnegut’s prose is a joy to experience: he combines a sort of Hemingwayesque simplicity with a knack for rendering startling, and often ridiculous, details. He is often very ironic and funny. Along the way, he explores ideas about free will and the nature of time. Much of the book is about writing itself.In this book there is an intriguing reference to Stephen Crane’s classic “The Red Badge of Courage”; perhaps this reference is Vonnegut’s way of directly connecting with the tradition of American war fiction. But this book transcends that genre. “Slaughterhouse Five” is sad, surreal, whimsical, brutal, and oddly gentle. It’s a remarkable book; I highly recommend it. As an interesting companion text, try “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien’s excellent book about the Vietnam War.
Review by for Easy Readers – English – Level 4: Slaughterhouse Five (German Edition)
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Kurt Vonnegut creates an intricate and creative story of science fiction while still writing an anti-war novel. ” Slaughterhouse-Five ” focuses on an incredibly silly character named Billy Pilgrim. After a series of tragic events, aliens called Tralfamadorians abduct Pilgrim. These aliens have the ability to travel to any moment in time whenever they wish. They teach Pilgrim how to travel through time and we find him constantly traveling back and forth through his own life at random. We find Pilgrim one moment reliving the firebombing of Dresden and on the very next page teeing off at a country club ten years later. Incidents exactly like this can be found adorned through the book along with Vonnegut’s distinct wit and black humor. One of the stronger points in the book deals with free will and predestination. Billy Pilgrim and the aliens believe that everyone’s life is set in stone and everything that we do was destined to happen. One Tralfamadorian tells Pilgrim, I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.” If such a thing were true then obviously the notion of free will is nothing more than human imagination used to fool ourselves. Thought provoking subjects such as this grab the reader’s attention and never lets go. Although the writing style is a bit strange and takes time to get used to, Vonnegut manages to weave an intricately detailed world of laughter, war horrors, and moral issues. Slaughterhouse-Five is a truly creative and incredibly entertaining read which comes highly recommended.
Review by M. B. Alcat for 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Longman ELT Simplified Readers: Level 4: 1700 Headwords: Intermediate)
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Eric Arthur Blair was an important English writer that you probably already know by the pseudonym of George Orwell. He wrote quite a few books, but many believe that his more influential ones were “Animal farm” (1944) and “1984″ (1948).In those two books he conveyed, metaphorically and not always obviously, what Soviet Russia meant to him.
I would like to make some comments about the second book, “1984″. That book was written near his death, when he was suffering from tuberculosis, what might have had a lot to do with the gloominess that is one of the essential characteristics of “1984″. The story is set in London, in a nightmarish 1984 that for Orwell might well have been a possibility, writting as he was many years before that date. Or maybe, he was just trying to warn his contemporaries of the dangers of not opposing the Soviet threat, a threat that involved a new way of life that was in conflict with all that the English held dear.
Orwell tried to depict a totalitarian state, where the truth didn’t exist as such, but was merely what the “Big Brother” said it was. Freedom was only total obedience to the Party, and love an alien concept, unless it was love for the Party. The story is told from the point of view of Winston Smith, a functionary of the Ministry of Truth whose work involved the “correction” of all records each time the “Big Brother” decided that the truth had changed. The Party slogan said that “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past”, and they applied it constantly by “bringing up to date” the past so as to make it coincide with whatever the Party wanted.
From Winston Smith’s point of view, many things that scare us are normal. For example, the omnipresence of the “Big Brother”, always watching you, and the “Thought Police” that punishes treacherous thoughts against the Party. The reader feels the inevitability of doom that pervades the book many times, in phrases like “Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you”.
Little by little, Winston begins to realize that things are not right, and that they should change. We accompany him in his attempt at subversion, and are unwilling witnesses of what that attempt brings about. This book is marked by hopelessness, but at the same time it is the kind of distressing book we all NEED to read…
Why do we need to read “1984″?. In my opinion, basically for two reasons. To start with, Orwell made in this book many observations that are no more merely fiction, but already things that manage to reduce our freedom. Secondly, and closelly linked to my first reason, this is a book that only gets better with the passing of time, as you can read in it more and more implications. One of Orwell’s main reasons for writting this “negative utopia” might have been to warn his readers against communism, but many years after his death and the fall of communism, we can also interpret it as a caution against the excessive power of mass media, or the immoderate power of any government (even those who don’t defend communism).
Technological innovation should be at the service of men, and allow them to live better lives, but it can be used against them. I guess that is one of Orwell’s lessons, probably the most important one. All in all, I think you can benefit from reading this book. Because of that, I highly recommend it to you
Belen Alcat
Review by Julie for 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Longman ELT Simplified Readers: Level 4: 1700 Headwords: Intermediate)
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George Orwell’s final novel, 1984, was written amidst the anti-communist hysteria of the cold war. But unlike Orwell’s other famous political satire, Animal Farm, this novel is filled with bleak cynicism and grim pessimism about the human race. When it was written, 1984 stood as a warning against the dangerous probabilities of communism. And now today, after communism has crumbled with the Berlin Wall; 1984 has come back to tell us a tale of mass media, data mining, and their harrowing consequences. It’s 1984 in London, a city in the new überstate of Oceania, which contains what was once England, Western Europe and North America. Our hero, Winston Smith works in the Ministry of Truth altering documents that contradict current government statements and opinions. Winston begins to remember the past that he has worked so hard to destroy, and turns against The Party. Even Winston’s quiet, practically undetectable form of anarchism is dangerous in a world filled with thought police and the omnipresent two-way telescreen. He fears his inevitable capture and punishment, but feels no compulsion to change his ways. Winston’s dismal observations about human nature are accompanied by the hope that good will triumph over evil; a hope that Orwell does not appear to share. The people of Oceania are in the process of stripping down the English language to its bones. Creating Newspeak, which Orwell uses only for examples and ideas which exist only in the novel. The integration of Newspeak into the conversation of the book. One of the new words created is doublethink, the act of believing that two conflicting realities exist. Such as when Winston sees a photograph of a non-person, but must reason that that person does not, nor ever has, existed.
The inspiration for Winston’s work ,may have come from Russia. Where Stalin’s right-hand man, Trotzky was erased from all tangible records after his dissention from the party. And the fear of telescreens harks back to the days when Stasi bugs were hooked to every bedpost, phone line and light bulb in Eastern Europe.
His reference to Hitler Youth, the Junior Spies, which trains children to keep an eye out for thought criminals- even if they are their parents; provides evidence for Orwell’s continuing presence in pop culture. “Where men can’t walk, or freely talk, And sons turn their fathers in.” is a line from U2′s 1993 song titled “The Wanderer”.
Orwell assumes that we will pick up on these political allusions. But the average grade 11 student will probably only have a vague understanding of these due to lack of knowledge. It is even less likely that they will pick up on the universality of these happenings, like the fact that people still “disappear” without a trace every day in Latin America.
Overall, however, the book could not have been better written. Orwell has created characters and events that are scarily realistic. Winston’s narration brings the reader inside his head, and sympathetic with the cause of the would-be-rebels. There are no clear answers in the book, and it’s often the reader who has to decide what to believe. But despite a slightly unresolved plot, the book serves its purpose. Orwell wrote this book to raise questions; and the sort of questions he raised have no easy answer. This aspect can make the novel somewhat of a disappointment for someone in search of a light read. But anyone prepared to not just read, but think about a novel, will get a lot out of 1984.
1984, is not a novel for the faint of heart, it is a gruesome, saddening portrait of humanity, with it’s pitfalls garishly highlighted. Its historic importance has never been underestimated; and it’s reemergence as a political warning for the 21st century makes it deserving of a second look. Winston’s world of paranoia and inconsistent realities is an eloquently worded account of a future we thought we buried in our past; but in truth may be waiting just around the corner.
Review by Shelley Gammon for 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Longman ELT Simplified Readers: Level 4: 1700 Headwords: Intermediate)
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George Orwell’s classic was incredibly visionary. It is hardly fathomable that this book was written in 1948. Things that we take for granted today – cameras everywhere we go, phones being tapped, bodies being scanned for weapons remotely – all of these things were described in graphic detail in Orwell’s book.Now that we have the Internet and people spying on other people w/ webcams and people purposely setting up their own webcams to let others “anonymously” watch them, you can see how this culture can develop into the Orwellian future described in “1984.”If you’ve heard such phrases as “Big Brother,” “Newspeak,” and “thought crime” and wondered where these phrases came from, they came from this incredible, vivid and disturbing book.Winston Smith, the main character of the book is a vibrant, thinking man hiding within the plain mindless behavior he has to go through each day to not be considered a thought criminal. Everything is politically correct, children defy their parents (and are encouraged by the government to do so) and everyone pays constant allegiance to “Big Brother” – the government that watches everyone and knows what everyone is doing at all times – watching you shower, watching you having sex, watching you eat, watching you go to the bathroom and ultimately watching you die.This is a must-read for everyone.
Review by Joanna Daneman for 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Longman ELT Simplified Readers: Level 4: 1700 Headwords: Intermediate)
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Most people read 1984 when in high school; it’s an accessible classic, with plenty of shock interest as well as literary value. I’m reviewing 1984 here for those who may already have read it. The overall theme of oppression and the fear of totalitarianism is well known; but there are underlying themes that are interesting reading indeed.For example, the excerpts of “the Book”, purported to have been written by the underground resistance under Goldstein (or by the Party itself, if we are to believe O’Brian) is a mouthpiece for his social philosophy. In the fragment of three chapters, the ruling class, middle class and proletariat class (high, middle, low) are pitted in an eternal cycle where the high seek to exlude all others, the middle to achieve high status, and the low to simple create havoc and complete upheaval. Take a look if you haven’t read this part of the book carefully. It’s mighty interesting.Winston’s relationship to O’Brian is also fascinating; the enigmatic O’Brian, Inner Party member and intellectual, has a fatal attraction for Winston–even more so than his passive affair with Julia. And when O’Brian breaks him in the Ministry of Truth, it is as much a surrender of love as it is a brainwashing. The interaction of Winston Smith and his persecutor is a uniquely written relationship. If you haven’t re-read 1984 in a while, and especially if you read it when you were young, it’s a great book to revisit.
Review by for 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four (Longman ELT Simplified Readers: Level 4: 1700 Headwords: Intermediate)
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Six years ago I was in a bookshop and on the shelf I saw a copy of George Orwell’s “1984″. I had often heard people mention this novel on TV in political discussions and so on without really knowing what they mean’t. Out of curiosity I decided to buy the book and see what it was like. I quite enjoyed it, and later that year we had to read it for Year 12 English. What I found interesting were the reactions of the other kids. Some liked it, others found it boring, uneventful or irrelevant. I remember one boy saying: “But 1984 was nothing like that!” The point about this novel is that it isn’t supposed to be like a Nostradamus prophecy. George Orwell was writing about the social conditions that existed at the time in which he was living. Shortages, censorship, government red tape and the manipulation of popular opinion. I’m not overly concerned with the book’s issues of politics or whether it’s been proved inacurrate or not. I like to think of this as the story of an “alternative” 1984, a look at how different the world might be if history went in a different direction. Other books that explore this theme are “The Man In The High Castle” and “Fatherland” which are both set in worlds where the Nazis had won the Second World War. These books revel in historical inaccuracy. I think “1984″ still has some relevance though. Especially the way the media alter people’s view of the world by deciding what we should and shouldn’t see, or the way newspapers “enhance” photographs. An example that comes to mind is when a newspaper altered a photo of the killer Martin Bryant by putting more shadow around his eyes to make this ordianary-looking man look psychotic. George Orwell was right about the idea of people being under constant surveillance, now that hidden cameras abound, a device more subtle and unobtrusive than the telescreen. Even though we’re not all wearing blue overalls and worshipping a demi god, free will is being undermined in a more insidious way. This novel has made an impact on other writers, particularly Anthony Burgess. He wrote a novel called “1985″. The beginning of that novel descibes his version of how the world of Big Bother, Ingsoc and the Thought Police came about. This isn’t a sequel, more of a reaction to the former book. In conclusion “1984″ is an interesting book of a world that might have been, and might still be.