When I first heard of the title I didn’t know what to expect especially since I had finished Slaughterhouse 5, a book by the same author that was pretty surprising. The book is about two men that have crossed paths, one sane man that considers himself an unknown writer while the other man is a maniac that gets even crazier when he reads a book written by the other man. The narrator of the story eventually breaks the 4th wall and talks to both you and the characters in the story while being completely conscious of the fact that he controls the story.
“I hold in my hand a symbol of wholeness and harmony and nourishment. It is Oriental in its simplicity, but we are Americans, Kilgore, and not Chinamen.” This is a quote from the epilogue of the story where the Narrator is talking to Trout, one of two main characters in the story. I believe this quote represents the story’s symbols, every symbol that has appeared in the book is interpreted differently by different people and that there may be a different meaning that the author was trying to show us or there was no meaning at all and he was just trolling.
I thought of several connections when I read this book, most of my connections are with Dwayne Hoover, the other main character that is crazy and psychotic. Dwayne reads Trout’s book and believes everything that the book had said, I don’t relate to Dwayne this way but the information that he obtained from the book intrigues me because I have always thought that perhaps no one in the world is actually real, that everything is an illusion, I am the only true person and I am trapped in this fake world.
Another connection that I thought of was how the narrator had joined the other characters in the book and started interacting with them. This reminds me of Bruce Almighty because Bruce talked to god and it just reminded me of the book because Bruce had met the creator of the world.
The gay son of Hoover’s that went to military school reminded me of my friend that went to military school because he just wanted to have fun but he was sent to a military academy because he didn’t focus enough on his academics.
I chose this picture because it reminds me of what Hoover did to a bunch of people in the book because he thought that all the humans were robots. Trout’s book was about how everyone around the reader was a robot and the only real human was the reader, Hoover read the book and took it seriously and started to wreak havoc.
Questions:
How is the narrator similar to the author if at all?
Is this book racist? Why or Why not?
What might have caused Hoover to become crazy?
Is Kurt Vonnegut for or against gay people?
What is the meaning of the title besides the drink?
This book was amazing and I enjoyed this more than Slaughterhouse 5 which is by the same author. I think that the book was well written and the book continued to surprise me, since Hoover is insane the book could jump to many different plots. I do recommend this book to people in high school and older since it contains some inappropriate content but the book is an enjoyable ride from start to finish.
