Slaughterhouse 5

Title: Slaughterhouse 5
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Published: 1969, this ed. 1991 by Vintage. I seem to have a LOT of books from Vintage.
Genre: War with heaps of dark comedy.
Pages: 157




I thought I'd like to read something cheerful and fun after Atonement. So maybe a book about WWII and the bombing of Dresden, thousands of civilians dying, wasn't the best of ideas.

There is humour and dark comedy in the life story of Billy Pilgrim, which is told chronologically very out of order. That's all right, though, as that's how Billy himself experiences it as well. His life is full of normal things -marriage, children, career, death- and not-so-normal things such as being a prisoner of war during the second World War and being beamed up onto a space ship and taken to a planet called Trafalmadore.

When I picked up the book I thought I'd give it a go, see what it's like, and decided to read a page or two. Then one paragraph more. And one more. And one more. Even though Billy's a bit of a fool, or maybe because of it, I wanted to keep on reading, to find out what happens to him. Reading this also made me read up on the bombing of Dresden. Finding out about history is never a bad thing, in my opinion.


So, even though it wasn't exactly the pick-me-up I was looking for, I really did like Slaughterhouse 5. I should have read it years ago, man.




"And then it developed that Campbell was not going to go unanswered after all. Poor old Derby, the doomed high school teacher, lumbered to his feet for what was probably the finest moment in his life. There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters. But old Derby was a character now."

Atonement

Title: Atonement
Author: Ian McEwan
Published: 2001 originally, this ed. 2002 by Vintage.
Genre: Family drama
Pages: 372




I'd been wanting to see the movie made of this book for a good, long while, and then it just happened to be on the telly when I was visiting my parents last summer, and I finally did see it. And then I wanted to finally read it, as well. And I finally did. And I'm glad I did, both, as I really enjoyed. Both.


On the hottest day of the summer, 13-year old Briony, frustrated by her ailing play in the honor of her big brother, sees something she's still unable to understand between two adults, and draws her own conclusions. Aaand acts upon them, causing some shit.


Okay, I've started a new paragraph three times now and have become stumped. What to say about this book? For one, I really should have read it in longer bits. As it is, I read the first half or so at lunch breaks at work, which meant that just as I was getting into the book, I had to go back to work. A few train trips got me deeper into the story, and even though I'd seen the movie, which is a very faithful adaptation, as far as I can remember anyway, I was pretty hooked. And touched. The book takes the reader deep into the thoughts and actions of the main players, both during the initial incident and through its consequences. I'm trying not to give out any spoilers. But, for a good, depressing time, read the book or see the movie!




"Briony leaned back against a wall and stared unseeingly down the nursery's length. It was a temptation for her to be magical and dramatic, and to regard what she had witnessed as a tableau mounted for her alone, a special moral for her wrapped in a mystery. But she knew very well that if she had not stood when she did, the scene would still have happened, for it was not about her at all. Only chance had brought her to the window. This was not a fairy tale, this was the real, the adult world in which frogs did not address princesses, and the only messages were the ones that people sent."