Kurt Vonnegut witnessed the fire bombing of Dresden (by Allied Forces between 13 February and 15 February 1945), and was unable to understand or make sense of it. Eventually he tried to write about it in his novel Slaughterhouse Five or The Children’s Crusade.
The protagonist Billy Pilgrim is unstuck in time. He appears to be living simultaneous lives, as a youth in the war, a successful optometrist and family man after the war, and as an alien abductee being exhibited in a zoo on the planet Tralfamdour (along with the girl of his fantasies Montana Wildhack).
There are many novels written about the futility of war (Heller’s Catch 22 for example) but Slaughterhouse Five really brings across Billy’s bemusement at the situation he had no control over.
Bewildering, humorous and poignant, there are some wonderful characters, and Vonnegut cleverly utilises key moments in Billy’s life to accelerate his movements in time.
The scene where Dresden is bombed in reverse (which unfortunately was missing in the movie) will stay with me for some time
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