This book is a blast. It's a little funny, very insightful and quite fantastical. I didn't know anything about this book when I started reading it. While reading the first chapter I gathered that it was going to be a WWII memoir. I had been hoping for a novel which I soon found out it was, though some of Kurt Vonnegut's real life experiences were present in the novel. Even though I wasn't excited to read a war memoir I was captivated by Vonnegut's anecdotal writing style in the first chapter and his perspective on the war and Dresden did interest me a bit. I was particularly moved by the line "I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee." He also forbade them from manufacturing instruments of war. This book doesn't in any way glorify war but it doesn't necessarily condemn it either as it presents all events in history as inevitable and predetermined. The book turns out to be semi sci-fi as it's protagonist Billy Pilgrim becomes unbound in time and the setting, while much of it is in Dresden, is actually the entirety of his life told in a disjointed order. The main sci-fi concept in the novel is that time does not pass, every moment in time always exists and so fate is inescapable and we never really die. There is always some point in time where we are still alive and that point is just as real as any other. The book is really unique and has an interesting perspective on reality. I would consider it mild sci-fi, it may still be interesting to those who don't generally like sci-fi. Overall it's a beautiful look at a man's life, a man whose life is filled with tragedy, loss, and massacre and yet he's generally unaffected as he doesn't really think loss is something that actually occurs. He doesn't feel bitter or sad because of the way he sees the passage of time. He relates very strongly to a passage from the Christmas carol Away in a Manger "The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes. But the Lord Jesus no crying he makes."
