On this day in 1973, newspapers report the burning of 36 copies of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
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Vonnegut’s book was a combination of real events and science fiction. His hero, Billy Pilgrim, was a World War II soldier who witnessed the firebombing of Dresden, as had Vonnegut himself. Pilgrim becomes “unstuck in time” and thereafter lives a double existence-one life on an alien planet where a resigned acceptance of inevitable doom expresses itself philosophically in the hopeless locution “And so it goes.” In his life on Earth, Pilgrim preaches the same philosophy. Some found the book’s pessimistic outlook and black humor unsuitable for school children.
Vonnegut was born on November 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana. He attended Cornell and joined the Air Force during World War II. He was captured by Germans and held in Dresden, where he was forced to dig out dead and charred bodies in the aftermath of the city’s bombing. After the war, he studied anthropology at the University of Chicago and later wrote journalism and public relations material.
Vonnegut’s other novels, including Cat’s Cradle (1963), Breakfast of Champions (1973), Galapagos (1985), and others, did not generate as much controversy as Slaughterhouse-Five. His experimental writing style, combining the real, the absurd, the satiric, and the fanciful, attracted attention and made his books popular. Vonnegut is also a gifted graphic artist whose satirical sketches appear in some of his later novels, including Breakfast of Champions.
I remember this. It happened the year I graduated from high school. I had already been a Vonnegut fan for years, having first read his “Report on the Barnhouse Effect” in a junior high school literature book. To say that it blew my mind is an understatement. It was life-changing.
About 20 years ago, through a series of odd occurrences, my husband and I found ourselves attending a dinner where Vonnegut was the honoree. I actually got a few minutes of face time with him, and I babbled like an idiot. (Remember, if you’re ever going to meet one of your personal icons, rehearse your lines!) I was wearing one of my daughter’s dresses, a black off-the-shoulder thing, and I can proudly say that I was ogled by Kurt Vonnegut, lol. I was thrilled.
I just want to note that his nonfiction was as important to me as his fiction. If you’re interested in actual eyewitness accounts of Dresden and its aftermath, read Vonnegut’s Palm Sunday and Fates Worse Than Death, two collections of essays and speeches. Both are very affecting.
Love that book. Should be required reading for students.
If you can’t understand it, can’t put it into the context of today’s book banning, free speech destruction, etc. there is really not point in reading it. People learn all about Nazi Germany, the totalitarianism of East Germany and the Soviet Union, and can’t possibly imagine how they could have happened while the exact same thing is happening right in their own country. A dumbed down population is exactly what government needs….and thus why they helped create it with their monopoly gulag of day prisons – aka, the skools.
There’s nothing like an old fashioned book burning to really warm the heart of a NAZI.
Today’s publik edukators call the burning of books they deem politically incorrect, ‘recycling’, but it’s the same thing…
Steve C.
Spring, Texas
My favorite is Cat’s Cradle. A little story…
When I was in Iran, one night I was sitting around with some friends and we were talking about religion. Someone asked me what mine was and being a smartass I replied, “I am attracted to Bokononism.” They all started laughing. I couldn’t believe all of them had read Cat’s Cradle so I asked, “what’s so funny?” One of them informed me that Bokon in persian means having sex. I think Vonnegut did that on purpose, lol.
Damn, now I’m going to have to find that story. A passage that went something like:
“Grand Marshal Vasileyevich, I have come to see you again. I have come to once again ask you to ..”
“Kolyi, my dear, you grow prettier each time I see you. How is my favorite niece today? And call me Alexei” his bushy black eyebrows, now tinged with grey, arched quizzically at her.
“Grand Marshal, we are in dire need of your leadership in the war against the aliens. Will you not come back to Spacefleet?” Neither her green eyes nor her clear soprano voice wavered.
“I cannot imagine what role an ancient derelict like myself would perform. Now, drink your chai – grizzhit kombrazur hedekir vorshk p’jooi?” that last, in something of an undertone, under his breath.
“Grand Marshal, I must have an answer before I go back today – and what was that last thing you said?” she queried.
“Eh? Oh, I said please drink up,” his squint could not entirely hide the mirth dancing in his eyes.
“Really? Because when I asked your late wife before she passed, she said it translated as ‘Why are you fucking a cow?’ ”
He turned beet red and choked on his drink, it took him several seconds to generate a reply – “Uhh, that’s a loose translation -”
Someday I’m going to have to learn enough Russian to understand the original phrase, which is not reproduced accurately above.