Author: Kurt Vonnegut Recounting the life of protagonist Billy Pilgrim, Slaughterhouse-Five is a novel about one mans journey through the Second World War, though there's a lot more going on than that. Structured quite unconventionally, the story is narrated by a bystander who has observed the protagonist throughout the events of the book, a bystander whom is described as being quite familiar with our protagonist despite never actually having interacted with him. The narrative itself takes place predominantly during WWII, however it switches between several other key periods in Billys life, including the day of his death. Billy himself is described as having become unstuck in time, meaning that he experiences all instances of his life simultaneously as though they were all happening at once. However, its also suggested that Billys Nietzschean understanding of time - as well as his abduction by aliens from Tralfamadore - is merely a coping mechanism allowing him to process his traumatic experiences inside Slaughterhouse-Five itself. Like the Forever War, Slaughterhouse-Five functions on two distinct levels: its both a war story and a science-fiction, and both are enriched by elements of the other.
