It took me this long to read Vonnegut’s classic time travel novel—about Billy Pilgrim, who has become unstuck in time—and of course I now wonder why I wated. I was inspired to finally pick up this novel by the episode of Lost in which Desmond similarly becomes unstuck in time, but I was surprised to find that this novel is not only an exploration of time travel but also a potent anti-war novel and even a fair piece of Zen Buddhist musing. After all, if every moment in your life happens simultaneously and no moment can be changed, living in the moment and accepting all states of life—including death—becomes the only option.

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I really enjoyed this – pretty crazy, meandering. A really interesting perspective on the war, and of course, life, the universe, and everything. It’s got a Watermelon Sugaryness about it, but is less opaque.

Nah. Not a book for me.

I had avoided reading this book because I thought it would be unbearably dreary. How could a book about the firebombing of Dresden during WWII not be dreary? But it is on the Modern Library’s Top 100 list, so I finally got around to it, and now I know the answer. If you write a book about the firebombing of Dresden and fill it with time travel, space ships, and extraterrestrials, it’s goofy, not dreary.

But I don’t like goofy books about extraterrestrials, especially when they are really serious books about the morality of firebombing your enemy during war. I realized that I would rather have a dreary, realistic book than a goofy book.

This is Vonnegut’s best book and a great anti-war novel that somehow manages to not quite be an anti-war novel (at least in the traditional sense). It is funny and witty; it is also devastating in a sort of oblique way. Vonnegut describes the world as it is, as it should be, and as it seems to be. He does not argue that we should change the world or “make the world a better place” (that would be too much), nor does he argue that we should accept the world as it is (that would be too easy); instead, he shows us how absurd the world really is and thus how wonderful and how tragic it is.

Has typically witty Vonnegut humor—nice feature. But kinda lacked substance for me. But then again, maybe I’m just not cool enough.