Girls, I Am Telling You, Some Things DO Improve With Age!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back when I was in high school--which, by this vantage point now, is getting closer to the Pelopensian wars--there were three authors who were very much "in vogue"--Herman Hesse, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Kurt Vonnegut, then known as Vonnegut, Jr. Because, even back then, I was so concerned about being "on the cutting edge", I read many of these authors, then. Of course, I read "The Hobbit" and "The Lord Of The Rings;" of Hesse, I remember reading "Steepnwolf" and "Siddhartha," while I recall reading a lot of Vonnegut--"Slaughterhouse Five," "Cat's Cradle," "The Sirens Of Titan," and my favorite, at the time, "Breakfast At Champions," which, back around the time of "Nashville" (1975), Robert Altman had planned to do as a movie. Regrettably, that did not come to pass.

I had not given much thought to Vonnegut recently, until I started looking at contemporary authors' (especially male authors) list of their all-time favoirte books.So many of them listed "Slaughterhouse Five," and I started to wonder why. What I recalled of it was a distinctly non linear book that did not quite do it for me, at the time, being more based in strong, linear works of literature, like those of Dickens and the Brontes, not to mention "Gone With The Wind." Next to these, Vonnegut was WAY out of my comfort zone. Not that I did not venture out once in awhile, but I have to confess, looking back, that I realized now, I probably did not get as much out of the book as I could now, with age and experience.

By the way, the covers pictured represent the editions I read, at the time. The red background, with the skull and crossbones, is what I just finished, while the other is the Dell Paperback edition I read, back in high school.

So, I picked up a copy of "Slaughterhouse Five", and reread it. I won't say it will go on my list of faves, BUT what a difference reading it close to 40 years later. I mean, what did I know about the bombing of Dresden???? Or time travel???? Or, outside of "Rebecca," (which fit the Romantic mold of the works mentioned earlier) books with omniscient narrators???? This book has all this, and fuses it together in a compelling, and surprisingly moving fashion. This has always been touted as a great anti-war novel, now I can see and concede the point. It is distinctively Vonnegut, but its denunciation of war is quite impacting, and Billy Pilgrim, the book's hero, is a true literary icon.

Reading the book is like watching a movie; it is a series of sharp vignettes that pass through the mind like quick edits in a film. The book is surprisingly short, but long on scope and insight, so that you feel you have read a longer novel than it is. I don't mean that it drags, rather that it covers much more ground than one realizes at the time one is reading it.

If you haven't read it, I recommend it. If, like me, you haven't opened it since high school, I urge you to go back. You are in for a startling surprise!!!!!!!

As starling as me wearing mauve at the next Masked Ball, loves!!!!!!!!!!!!