Devangshu Datta: Lonesome without the Slapstick

VIEWPOINT

"Bo-peep Tweet! Billy Pilgrim had come unstuck in time" must be a candidate for the most arresting opening sentence ever written. It kicks off one of the most unusual novels. Slaughterhouse-Five was a shocker in style and structure; as canonical as Ulysses.

The saga of Billy Pilgrim covers much more time and space (much more succinctly) than the chronicle of Leopold Bloom's activities on June 16, 1904; it's easier to read, and it's generated as much critical verbiage. It also inspired revisionist examination of a senseless act of genocide and fuelled the anti-Vietnam-war movement.

Before "Slaughterhouse", Kurt Vonnegut Junior was an unusual writer with a committed but small fan-following. Afterwards, he was cult. The book won the Hugo, and the movie won the Prix De Jury at Cannes.

What was it about? Schlachthof Fünf (literally "slaughterhouse five") in the east German city of Dresden had underground ice-chambers where butchered carcasses could be stored. Dresden had no military-industrial installations and it was outside the range of Allied bombers operating from England. So it survived unscathed until 1945.

After D-Day, it was within the range of bombers from France. Between February 13 and 15 1945, Allied bombers hit Dresden in raids that experimented to perfect a technique designed to cause maximum damage.

First, high-explosive was dropped to blow roofs and exterior walls off. Then, incendiaries set fire to everything. Once a large fire starts, hot air rushes out, creating a low pressure zone. Cooler air rushes in, sucking people in with it. Those who don't get sucked in to burn, die of asphyxiation as all oxygen is consumed. It's the same principle as in the cave-busters of Tora Bora.

Over 80 per cent of Dresden was destroyed. Administration broke down. The estimated death-toll ranges from 35,000 to 300,000""the city had a population of about 850,000 inclusive of many refugees.

That included American prisoners of war captured during the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. They took refuge underground in Slaughterhouse 5 and survived to participate in disaster relief operations.

Similar firebombing raids destroyed Tokyo in March 1945, actually killing more people than Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Tokyo was a legitimate military target. But until Slaughterhouse-Five was published in 1969, the rationale for Dresden had not been discussed. Dresden remains a blot on the Allied conscience""was it an act of simple revenge for the Blitz?

Vonnegut was a PoW in Dresden. Slaughterhouse-Five features the life of Billy Pilgrim, a Dresden PoW, who suffers brain damage that causes him to skip back and forth in time. He has been kidnapped by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore and is sitting in a cage in a zoo, being encouraged to copulate with a kidnapped porn-star, Wildhack Montana. Tralfamadoreans, (who look like toilet plungers), see time as a fourth dimension and find Billy's affliction normal. Pilgrim knows how he lived and died. Oh Yes! The story is (perhaps) being written by a failed SF writer called Kilgore Trout who is Vonnegut's alter-ego.

Even as the book appeared, napalmed Vietnamese kids hit mainstream media. The My Lai Massacre was being debated. America was divided on the justifications for the Vietnam War. Vonnegut's descriptions of corpses that smelled of "mustard and roses" helped crystallise public opinion.

I last read Slaughterhouse-Five over 15 years ago. My copy is lost. I have no need to hunt for it""I can quote passages from memory. Alone, it stands as one of the most powerful anti-war commentaries ever written. Coupled to Player Piano (which explores the human condition postulating an industrial society where dissent is verboten) and Cat's Cradle (which features a doomsday weapon that freezes all water), it is part of an ironic and idiosyncratic opus that uses science-fiction to question tenets of civilisation.

Vonnegut once said after a failed suicide attempt that it was a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead. Slaughterhouse-Five ended with a line that has since become a catchphrase, when death and endings occur. On April 11, Kilgore Trout's alter-ego passed on. So it goes.