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There would be a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the novel's climax would occur with the destruction of Dresden. Vonnegut explains that his early intention was to write in the traditional form of linear plot progression. More biographical than fictional, it not only relates a good deal of Kurt Vonnegut's biography, it explains how the novel came to be written.Ĭhapter One prepares us to understand the characteristics of this nontraditional novel. The first chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five serves more as an introduction or a preamble than as a typical first chapter in a novel. He concludes the first chapter by apologizing that his "war book," Slaughterhouse-Five, is a failure because it was written by a pillar of salt. He identifies with her because her last deed was so human. Conceding that the people in both cities were contemptible, and that the world was better off without them, he empathizes with Lot's wife, who, failing to heed God's edict and glancing back on the destruction, was turned into a pillar of salt. He quotes from the Old Testament story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Finally Vonnegut turns to a copy of the Bible. Next he refers to a work by Erika Ostrovsky about a French writer who was a soldier in World War I. From Words for the Wind, he quotes four lines of a Theodore Roethke poem that question the reality of wakefulness and make a statement about forging ahead as duty dictates. While waiting in a motel room for a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, from where he will travel with O'Hare to Dresden, the narrator reads from two books. The book also relates that when young Goethe, a famous German writer, visited Dresden many years after the war, he found the city still greatly in ruin. He reads of the contrast between the fate of two churches: The first one was destroyed in flames the other survived because the curves of its dome repulsed the Prussian bombs like rain. The book recounts how in 1760, Dresden underwent a siege by the Prussians. In his bedroom that night, the narrator reads from a book about Dresden's history that O'Hare placed on his bedside table. Giving his word that he will not write such a book - combat cinema heroes like Frank Sinatra and John Wayne will have no part in the tale - the narrator promises that he will call his novel The Children's Crusade. Mary's irritation overwhelms her: She accuses the narrator of planning to write a novel that glorifies war. Despite her attempts to disrupt their war-story conversation, the two old buddies recall a number of incidents they experienced together. Contacting the air force to obtain information about the Dresden air raids, he discovers that the operation is still classified as top secret: After his experiences in Dresden during the war, he is astonished to think that these events are not common knowledge.Īt O'Hare's home, the narrator detects resentment and hostility seething within O'Hare's wife, Mary. The narrator explains how his aspirations to write a book about the bombing were received negatively by people who asked what he was working on - he is advised that the work is no more than just another inventory of military atrocities. Eventually, we are told, the two men revisit Dresden, destroyed by British and American planes in the last days of World War II. Although O'Hare is doubtful about remembering much about the war, he tells the narrator to come for a visit.
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O'Hare, that he is writing a book about the bombing of Dresden, Germany, and that he would like O'Hare's help.
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The narrator tells his old war buddy, Bernard V. He maintains, by and large, that the parts about the war are true, although he admits that he has changed people's names. The narrator begins Slaughterhouse-Five by explaining a number of details about the novel, primarily how he came to write it.