Summary
It is so short and jumbled and jangled
. . . because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.
See Important Quotations Explained
Vonnegut writes in his own voice, introducing his experience
of the firebombing of Dresden, in eastern Germany, during World
War II while he was a prisoner of war and his attempt for many years
to complete a book on the subject. He begins with the claim that
most of what follows is true, particularly the parts about war.
With funding from the Guggenheim Foundation, Vonnegut
and his wartime friend Bernhard V. O’Hare return to Dresden in 1967. In
a taxi on the way to the Dresden slaughterhouse that served as their
prison, Vonnegut and O’Hare strike up a conversation with the cab
driver about life under communism. It is to this man, Gerhard Müller,
as well as to O’Hare’s wife, Mary, that Vonnegut dedicates Slaughterhouse-Five. Müller
later sends O’Hare a Christmas card with wishes for world peace.
Vonnegut relates his unsuccessful attempts to write about
Dresden in the twenty-three years since he was there during the
war. He is very proud of the outline of the story that he draws
in crayon on the back of a roll of wallpaper. The wallpaper outline
represents each character in a different color of crayon, with a
line for each progressing through the story’s chronology. Eventually
the lines enter a zone of orange cross-hatching, which represents
the firebombing, and those who survive the attack emerge and finally
stop at the point when the POWs are returned.
However, the outline does not help Vonnegut’s writing. He initially
expected to craft a masterpiece about this grave and immense subject,
but, while the horrific destruction he witnessed occupies his mind
over the years, it defies his attempts to capture it in writing.
Vonnegut’s antiwar stance only adds to the difficulty, since, as
a filmmaker acquaintance remarks to him, writing a book against
war would prevent war as effectively as writing a book against glaciers
would prevent their motion.
Vonnegut recounts the events of his postwar life, including
a stints as a student of anthropology at the University of Chicago,
a police reporter, and a public relations man for General Electric
in Schenectady, New York. In the years following the war, Vonnegut encounters
ignorance about the magnitude of Dresden’s destruction, and when
he contacts the U.S. Air Force for information, he discovers that
the event is still classified as top secret.
Around 1964, Vonnegut takes his
young daughter and her friend with him to visit Bernhard V. O’Hare
in Pennsylvania. He meets Mary O’Hare, who is disgusted by the likelihood
that Vonnegut will portray himself and his fellow soldiers as manly
heroes rather than the “babies” they were. With his right hand raised,
Vonnegut vows not to glorify war and promises to call his book The
Children’s Crusade. Later that night he reads about the
Children’s Crusade and the earlier bombing of Dresden in 1760.
While teaching at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Vonnegut
lands a contract to write three books, of which Slaughterhouse-Five is
to be the first. It is so short and jumbled, he explains, because
there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.
