Reading Order
Slaughterhouse-Five Reading Order
Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut is one of the most formally innovative and morally urgent American novels of the twentieth century — a dark comedy about the firebombing of Dresden in February 1945, told through the story of Billy Pilgrim, a young American prisoner of war who has become 'unstuck in time', experiencing the events of his life out of sequence, and has been abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore who have shown him that all moments exist simultaneously and that there is no such thing as death, only the eternal 'so it goes'. Vonnegut himself survived the bombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war, sheltering in the underground cold-storage vault of a slaughterhouse (Schlachthof-Fünf, or Slaughterhouse-Five), and spent twenty years trying to write about it before producing this book. The result is a novel that uses science fiction, black humor, and formal disruption to approach the unspeakable — the death of approximately 135,000 civilians in a single night of firebombing, more than died at Hiroshima, and an atrocity that Vonnegut insists was both real and pointless. The refrain 'So it goes', which follows every mention of death in the novel, operates simultaneously as Tralfamadorian philosophy (all moments exist; death is permanent; 'so it goes') and as a running index of atrocity: by the end of the novel, 'so it goes' has been deployed more than a hundred times, and the effect of this accumulation is the novel's moral argument in miniature. Slaughterhouse-Five remains the most widely read American novel about the Second World War.
Where to start
Slaughterhouse-Five — the first chapter, where Vonnegut speaks in his own voice about the difficulty of writing the book, is essential; then the Billy Pilgrim chapters, which move freely through time.
Complete Slaughterhouse-Five Book List
- 1Buy
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut·1969·The novel — Billy Pilgrim, Dresden, Tralfamadore, and 'so it goes.' - 2Buy
Cat's Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut·1963·Vonnegut's earlier science fiction satire — Ice-Nine and the invented religion of Bokononism. - 3Buy
Breakfast of Champions
Kurt Vonnegut·1973·Vonnegut's most explicitly metafictional novel — the author appears to free his characters from fiction. - 4Buy
Catch-22
Joseph Heller·1961·Heller's novel of World War II absurdity — the closest contemporary parallel to Slaughterhouse-Five; both use dark comedy to approach the experience of war. - 5Buy
The Tin Drum
Günter Grass·1959·Grass's novel of Germany through the Second World War narrated by Oskar, who refuses to grow — European dark comedy approaching the same horror. - 6Buy
A Farewell to Arms
Ernest Hemingway·1929·Hemingway's World War I novel — the modernist predecessor; the world from which Vonnegut's post-modern comedy emerged. - 7Buy
Mother Night
Kurt Vonnegut·1962·Vonnegut's earlier war novel — an American Nazi propagandist who is also an Allied spy; the moral complexity of war without Slaughterhouse-Five's formal innovation. - 8Buy
If on a winter's night a traveler
Italo Calvino·1979·Calvino's metafictional novel — the postmodern formal playfulness of Slaughterhouse-Five developed into an elaborate reader-address.
Slaughterhouse-Five — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Slaughterhouse-Five about?
Slaughterhouse-Five follows Billy Pilgrim, a young American POW who survives the Allied firebombing of Dresden in February 1945 by sheltering in a slaughterhouse's underground cold-storage vault. Billy has become 'unstuck in time' — he experiences the events of his life non-sequentially, moving between his childhood, the war, his postwar career as an optometrist in Ilium, New York, and his abduction by Tralfamadorians, who have shown him that all moments exist simultaneously. The novel interweaves these time periods, always returning to Dresden, using the Tralfamadorian philosophy ('so it goes') as a way of approaching the unspeakable — the death of approximately 135,000 people in a single night of firebombing.
What does 'So it goes' mean in Slaughterhouse-Five?
'So it goes' is the Tralfamadorian response to death — the aliens, who can see all of time simultaneously, know that the dead are alive in other moments, and 'so it goes' is their acceptance of this fact. Vonnegut uses the phrase as a refrain following every mention of death in the novel, which is very frequent; by the end, it has appeared more than a hundred times. The effect is double: on the one hand, it suggests a kind of cosmic acceptance, a Zen-like detachment from the fact of individual death; on the other hand, the cumulative repetition functions as an index of atrocity — every 'so it goes' represents a real death, and their accumulation is the novel's moral argument. The phrase is simultaneously a comfort, a joke, and an act of witness.
What was the firebombing of Dresden?
The firebombing of Dresden took place over three nights in February 1945 — February 13–15 — when British and American bombers dropped incendiary and high-explosive bombs on Dresden, a German city with relatively little military significance, creating a firestorm that destroyed the old city center and killed approximately 22,700 to 25,000 people (estimates have varied widely; early claims of 135,000 dead were exaggerated). Vonnegut witnessed the aftermath as an American POW and spent years trying to understand and write about it. The novel's moral argument is that the firebombing was both real — the deaths were real, the destruction was real — and, in retrospect, pointless: the war was nearly over, and the bombing served little military purpose. 'So it goes' is Vonnegut's refusal to accept this pointlessness as acceptable.
What is the relationship between Vonnegut and Billy Pilgrim?
The relationship is complicated. The novel's first chapter is explicitly autobiographical — Vonnegut speaks in his own voice about his difficulty writing this book for twenty years, and appears briefly in the narrative ('I was there' he says during the Dresden section). Billy Pilgrim is not Vonnegut — Vonnegut is clearly more lucid and morally engaged than the passive, time-unstuck Billy — but Billy's experiences are drawn from Vonnegut's own: the capture, the cattle cars, the Dresden shelter, the aftermath. The distance between author and protagonist allows Vonnegut to comment on Billy while inhabiting him; the Tralfamadorian philosophy (acceptance, 'so it goes') is what Billy adopts to survive, but the novel is not endorsing it — it is showing what atrocity does to the people who survive it.
What should I read after Slaughterhouse-Five?
After Slaughterhouse-Five, readers typically continue with Vonnegut's other novels: Cat's Cradle (1963), his best science fiction satire; Mother Night (1962), his earlier war novel; Breakfast of Champions (1973), his most explicitly metafictional work. For the tradition of dark comedy about World War II, Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (1961) is the closest parallel — both use absurdist humor to approach the horror of war. Günter Grass's The Tin Drum (1959) is the European counterpart. For the metafictional tradition Slaughterhouse-Five belongs to, Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow (1973) is the most ambitious contemporary text.
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