Vonnegut's Flow

I do like the way Kurt Vonnegut writes. He has a flow and a voice that makes me feel like if I were listening to a fairy tale or a very long anecdote. I have never read a first chapter in which the author tell how he wrote the book, usually that’s the prologue or the introduction o the Author’s note, but no the first chapter of a novel. In a Clockwork Orange the part in which the author (Anthony Burgess) talks his own personal experience writing the book or after being published, “The book I wrote is divided into three sections of seven chapters each.” (Pg. x Clockwork Orange) Giving his opinion on the success of the book, the mistakes of the book, etc… yet, he does not write about it in a novel-type of voice, but more of a personal analysis. Kurt does. Its like if the writing of the book is part of the book.

“Even then I was supposedly writing a book about Dresden.” (pg. 10 Slaughterhouse Five) It did amaze me that the process of writing the book is part of the book. It makes total sense! How you write a book influences a lot on the book itself, and I agree with Vonnegut in incorporating all the process he had to go through to write the book. Starting with getting O’Hare in the phone because he would help him write the book, “We were captured together in the war. I told him who I was on the telephone. He had trouble believing it.” (pg. 4) And to how he got to the final publishing of the Book. The original name of the book was Children’s Crusades, “‘I tell you what,’ I said, ‘I’ll call it ‘The Children’s Crusade’’ She was my friend after that.” it ends up being Slaughterhouse Five.

The tone he uses makes the book an easy and fast writing to read. It is enjoyable. Vonnegut uses very short and simple sentences, therefore the book itself is not a brick (ladrillo) to read. I liked this quote because of the simple and yet concise word choice. “And I let the dog out, or I let him in, and we talk some. I let him know I like him, and he lets me know he likes me. He doesn’t mind the smell of mustard gas and roses.” (pg. 7) He personifies the “dog” by saying that they talk, nevertheless so I am not saying that people can’t talk with dogs (referring to communicating with them). He also uses the phrase “smell mustard gas and roses” from the breath of a drunk, which his wife dislikes, but his dog doesn’t!

As in the content of the book, meaning the destruction of Dresden and an anti-war book, I had no idea about Dresden massacre. I googled it and found out that it was totally destroyed by the Red Army of Germany between 1944 and 1945. An estimation of 150,000 to 250,000 deaths, no wonder someone like Vonnegut would like to write about it.