Slaughter House Five/Vonnegut

[Thanh Dang Nguyen <nguyet1@Eng.Auburn.EDU>]

Hi folks,

> Co' mo^.t truye^.n cu?a KV dda~ la`m tha`nh phim, hi`nh nhu* la` 
> "Slaughterhouse Five" thi` pha?i ...

Your memory is still pretty good :-) As far as I know, the film 
adaptation of the mentioned novel was made by 1972, and was a success
according to Vonnegut himself. I haven't watched this movie, and
always feel reluctant in watching it, because the novel is so
wonderfully written, and I'm just afraid that the movie cannot
capture the soul of it.

If you want to know how horrible and ridiculous and grotesque a war 
is, read "Slaughter House Five"! Vonnegut himself had fought during
the WW II, had been taken as a prisoner of war, and most of all
had witnessed the fire bombing of Dresden which had killed more
people than Hirosima itself (135,000 people had died on that day
in February 1945 in what used to be one of the most beautiful
cities of Europe. So it goes.) This novel was based on his own experience
during the war, which served as a framework in which he explored
the madness and cruelty of war, the nature of people who participated 
in it, and above all our ridiculous and pathetic fate in this immense 
universe. We humans are just like "bugs in chambers", and "there's 
absolutely nothing we can do about it". But it is our humanity, and our 
awareness, that makes us different from "dead machinery".

Here is an excerpt from the novel which captures one of the main
themes of "Slaughter House Five":

``
	I looked through the Gideon Bible in my motel room for 
	tales of great destruction. The sun was risen upon the Earth 
	when Lot entered into Zo-ar, I read. Then the Lord rained upon 
	Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Lord out of 
	Heaven; and He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and 
	all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon 
	the ground.

	So it goes.
                        
	Those were vile people in both those cities, as is well known. 
	The world was better off without them.
                        
	And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where 
	all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, 
	and I love her for that, because it was so humane.
                        
	So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes.		''

			Slaughter House Five, or The Children's Crusade
					Kurt Vonnegut, 1969

BTW, I highly recommend you guys to read it in English, since it's
really not difficult. You can order some of these books for only
6 dollars apiece on paperback. Does anyone of you read Vonnegut's books
in other languages, and what do you think? In Hungary, he is a
pretty much popular writer among college students.

Happy reading!

-Thanh

P.S. If you have a recommendation of any writer with the same style,
I will appreciate it very much!

P.P.S. For Vonnegut fans only:
		http://www.duke.edu/~crh4/vonnegut/vonnegut.html