How does one ascertain that a book is a "classic?" Before the Internet, it was not so easy. "Greatest Novels" lists were hard to come by. I suppose encyclopedia entries were one way. Certain books just seemed to be part of the American vocabulary. It helped when a book was adapted into a movie. It also helped when an author was famous for something besides writing books. Prizes enabled the book to remain a permanent fixture in the previously mentioned encyclopedias. What books are assigned in the classroom is also a surefire designation of a book as a classic. After all, a teacher would not waste our time on anything less, would he/she?
Closely associated with classroom assignments are Cliff's Notes. I actually only heard them called CliffNotes, but that was in error. Even in my small hometown back in the 1980s I knew of a place that sold them, albeit a limited selection. Here were all the summations, meanings, and answers that one would need for the purposes of the classroom-according to Cliff. It was difficult to look at the list of Cliff's Notes offerings and not come to the conclusion that it was as good of a source for a definitive list of classics. Of course, the shorter books were more likely to be Cliff's Noted, as those are the ones more likely to be assigned in the classroom. Back in the 1980s, one of the more recent books in the collection was Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, released at the end of the 1960s.
I struggled a bit trying to construe Vonnegut's message. Perhaps another reading is needed. [Kids, what follows are topics for that three page paper the teacher is forcing you to write.] The themes included death, perception, and predestination. Death of the unnatural kind permeates the book, and Vonnegut underlines every passing. So it goes.
Perception is interesting. While it seems to revolve around Billy Pilgrim's view of the world, Vonnegut slips in his own views, along with a few other characters like Roland Weary and Kilgore Trout. Billy's view of the world is shaped by his war experience at a young age. Then the plane crash seems to jumble everything up. Kilgore Trout's writing comes to life in his head. He has visions of the future. He is even abducted by Troutian aliens. Reality comes unglued.
Predestination, the belief in the inability to change one's future, is a part of the alien creed. But maybe it is merely a defense mechanism for Billy's traumatized mind. And what does Montana's locket signify, the one whose message is important enough to warrant the only illustration in the book? "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference." This is at odds with the gospel according to Billy.
Vonnegut's description of the war is troubling. Those English prisoners of war and their cushy lifestyle does not seem possible that late in the war. Why would the Germans, who had to be running short on amenities, allow it? Maybe this is a true story related by Vonnegut's own experience. Then there is the whole issue of Dresden, which is damaged by Vonnegut's insistence, both in the "prologue" chapter and in Billy's experience, that the bombing of Dresden was as bad or even worse than Hiroshima and the like. Vonnegut says that 135,000 were killed. Where does he come by that number? A short investigation reveals that this number was quoted from a "historian" who had written a book about Dresden. This "historian" apparently used Goebbels as a source, and unsurprisingly he has been labeled as a holocaust denier, among other things. That book has been largely discredited. In recent years Dresden has claimed at most 25,000 people killed as a result of the bombing. Quite a difference from what Vonnegut espoused, and it is damaging to the book. Unless, that is, this is seen as another issue in the theme of perception. To Billy and Vonnegut, the destruction had to result in over 100,000 deaths, because that is what their eyes and minds were telling them.
So, is Vonnegut's book a classic? That is not really for me to judge, particularly so soon after just one reading. It does offer a lot to chew on. And it will probably stay with me longer than the movie version, about which I remember practically nothing from my viewing 15 years ago. Or maybe I did not see it at all? I do not have the power to recall the events of nearly every day of my life. If you are a regular watcher of 60 Minutes you know what I am referring to. A very small number of people have that power, including Marilu Henner. It sounds a lot like Billy Pilgrim, does it not?
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