Almost 24 years after WW2, Apollo 12 was rocketed off into space and scheduled to land on the moon. While on the moon astronauts took photos of their surrounding on the moon to send back to earth. These pictures allegedly showed UFO’s in the distance, which triggered a lot of people to start to wonder if they really do exist. All of that talk about other life in space may have led to many ideas of aliens actually existing. Slaughterhouse Five written by Kurt Vonnegut in 1969 may have been heavily influenced by these sightings to add extra terrestrial life into his novel. It’s an fascinating read for both war enthusiast and alien chasers. The novel is written like you're jumping from place to place in time, including WW2 and other occurrences in the protagonist's life. Its wild, but surprisingly easy to keep up with.
The novel is extremely interesting, never a dull moment there’s always something to respond to, such as the vulgar language, gore, and absolutely impossible stories. Its crazy how creative Vonnegut had to be to have come up with some of the stuff that is mentioned in the books. I was so awe-stricken I know I would never be able to think up anything like it in my lifetime. ““They see them as great millipedes- “with babies’ legs at one end and people’s legs at the other,” says Billy Pilgrim. Who would ever think of this!? Who would think to add a story about alien abduction into a novel about World War 2. He was able to shape these aliens the way he believed aliens would look. Of course this actually happens a lot, writers making up their own creatures, its been happening for centuries even, all the way back into Greek Mythology.
Another mention in the book that I felt was humerus was only a few pages in. The mention of anti-war books, and how hard they were to stop, he even compared them to glaciers. ““I say, ‘Why don’t you write an anti-glacier book instead?” What he meant, of course was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers.” Its such an ironic statement especially with global warming actually melting the glaciers. You wouldn’t be able to compare war to glaciers anymore. At that time it was just supposed to be a statement, they believe glaciers couldn’t melt as immense as they have now, theres no way. They’re just as big as wars, theres no way of stopping them. For people that believe the war nothing but trouble then maybe this saying is a good thing. At one point in history people believed that the glaciers would always be around, but now they are melting away. Maybe sometime in the future, war will melt away as well.
Its so great that I found a novel like this one, it was so captivating and exciting to read. I didnt want to put it down, it was never dull, lately most novels I’ve read have been very disappointing, and I’ve fallen asleep reading them. This novel restored my hope, it reminded
me that not all books that are AP appropriate have to be uninteresting and confusing. I was even surprised that just the parts about the war were interesting, but I kept reading because of the aliens. It was such a strange concept that at any moment in our life, we could also be doing something else, which is the way the aliens saw everything. It also gives its readers a nicer perspective on death, and how at point in time a person might be dead but in many other points in time they were alive, living their life to the fullest.
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