Slaughter House Five
by Kurt Vonnegut
This anti-war novel impressed in various ways with some of us finding it absolutely brilliant and others more perplexed and worried about its possible fatalism.
Everybody appreciated the humour.
The writing seems effortless and is certainly easy to read and the book is crammed full of original ideas.
Vonnegut’s compassion and concern for humanity shine through and his message seems to be summed up in the maxim: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference”.
There was some discussion as to whether Vonnegut was a genius or a nutter.
We went for the genius option and awarded our coveted 5-star rating. Kurt Vonnegut died last year.
So it goes
NS June 2008
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