Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

I'm embarresed to say I've never read this classic from 1969. I have to say I was a little lost at first. This is a difficult book to get through I really enjoyed the style and phrasings but the plot and metaphors were a little hard for me. Then I slowed down and realized that plot is not the be all end all of some great books and sometimes a book has a reason for being so stylistic. The bombing of Dresden in which over 20,000 people died is unerplayed these days. It certainly was not something I knew about. Vonnegut was a witness as soldier to it and remebering that is ultimately what the book is about. He is a character in the book adnstarts the first chapter talking about his attempts to write about the bombings he tells you how the story will start and what the last line of the book will be. Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time and starts going backwards and forwards in his life after he is kidnapped by aliens. It's a ridiculous story and I thought that was the story but then I began to realize that the real story is twofold the aliens and time travel are figments of Pilgrim's imagination they are his ways of coping with what happened during the war. whats more since you never forget that the real Kurt is a character in the story and really witnessed the bombing the structure and quck scenes nature of this book is the author's way of trying to comunicate the horror of this but finds you cannot truly do that. this was the first book in a long time that I can't wait to read again I loved this book and feel it will reveal more and more each time I revisit it.