"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to always tell the difference." - Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse Five
I was surprised by two things reading this book. One, I had no idea that this was the origin of the above quote. Two, this was a very different book from Cat's Cradle. I'm not sure why I expected the books to be more similar than they are, maybe I've read too many one note authors, but while Vonnegut's voice is still clearly present, the two books are talking about very different things in very different ways. Slaughterhouse Five actually reminds me a lot of Joseph Heller's Catch-22, which I read last year and enjoyed. The post-modern anti-war flavor is strong in both books, and there's a pretty strong similarity between their loose play with time, too; These are not linear books. Catch-22 is more darkly humorous, though, like Cat's Cradle in that respect, while Slaughterhouse flirts with science fiction in a way that leaves the reader wondering what really did and did not happen. I love being left with that question. I also enjoyed the way Vonnegut called out the hypocrisy of war. I didn't care for this one as much as Cat's Cradle, and between them I think I liked Catch-22 better, but this was a good book. And it introduced me to the book I picked up to read next, Celine's Journey to the End of the Night, which I understand may have influenced both Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse and Heller's earlier Catch-22.
Book 13 on my way to 52 in 2011
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