Outside Reading - S5

I am reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. So far, it is full of dark humor and satire of the kind that doesn't make you laugh, but does require you to reflect on the topics at hand. Billy Pilgrim, the main character, is so slow that it's funny, and the author constantly uses him to represent different things. The topics involved in the novel are deceptively deep and very hard to recognize if you are reading at a brisk pace. The book is full of symbols and some are harder to comprehend than others. I would rate it higher than other assigned readings, but it isn't something I would just pick up and read for fun.

Vonnegut wields the plot like a superball, bouncing the reader from plot line to plot line through the use of a "time travel" plot object. You may be reading about the protagonist's time in the war for a few pages, and suddenly you are transferred to a description of the house he lived in, and again to a hospital scene. While these can get distracting, the author always manages to link them together in some way and weave the plot together like a oversized spider's web. The whole structure is used to relate to the protagonist's mental condition, a brilliant move. Vonnegut utilizes every aspect of the book to make points, and it is a very refreshing type of writing.

A movie is definitely in the making, and my group will be working on it soon. I will be editing for other groups as well.   

Theme

To Kill A Mockingbird was an interesting addition to other, similar works I have read that deal with the same issues of racial equality in early America. The most similar work that I have read was Amistad. Both books were passionate about the issues that they dealt with, and I had no choice to feel sympathetic to their cause.

I know that as a child I had little to no awareness of racial inequality and I was totally oblivious to the fact that not all men were treated equal. Scout, on the other hand, had a surprising grasp of the issue that I found interesting. Having read books like these before, it wasn't a complete surprise as to the tone and message delivered in the book. I thought that the court case could have been made much more dramatic than it in fact was, and the author cold have exaggerated more aspects to increase the effect.

Overall, I don't think I got as much of an emotional response as some of my peers, but it was an engaging read and one that I do not regret.