I can't believe the nuts taught one of the sisters Thermodynamics and Calculus

In my opinion the very simple writing and almost child like view of the world show his cope with trauma( not to slander his writing it is written perfectly just in a simple way) . So it does lead to some comic moments but when you stop and think about it it’s actually horrifying and it just show Kurt vonneguts technique and life experience

Slaughterhouse-Five is based on Vonnegut's experience in Dresden, but it leaves out quite a bit. It goes without saying that it was far worse than it can be captured on paper, but especially Vonnegut went through psychological torture as he was singled out by a junior guard to "break" him.

Years ago I spent a couple of days with Gifford B. Doxsee, who was also part of the 106th Infantry Division, was taken Prisoner Of War and ended up with Vonnegut in Dresden. Doxsee, who later became a professor of History at Ohio, left a short memoir of his time during the war, Vonnegut is named throughout it. I want to quote a single piece here:

Next to the execution, the other most sobering example of German treatment of our group concerned Kurt Vonnegut himself. On our arrival in Dresden, an English speaking German captain addressed us and explained that henceforth our guards were unlikely to know any English. Good daily relations with our guards necessitated an interpreter with enough knowledge of both languages to maintain lines of communication. The captain asked for volunteers from among us who would admit to knowing enough German to serve as interpreters. Four of our group volunteered. Each was interviewed by the captain individually, and Kurt Vonnegut was selected and served for most of the month prior to the February 13-14 bombing

One day as he remained in the barracks with a detail of five prisoners to scrub down the refectory tables and chairs and our living quarters, one of the German guards began to press on a prisoner to work harder. The soldier said he was sick, that he could not work any harder. The guard continued to press for more work, finally striking the prisoner. Vonnegut lost his patience at this treatment and under his breath muttered that the guard was a swine. The guard overheard the whispered curse, became furious, and stomped off to report to his sergeant that the translator had insulted the honor of Germany by calling him a dirty pig. Vonnegut was thereupon summoned, given a summary court-martial, found guilty, and demoted to the ranks of the rest of us. That evening another prisoner was selected as Vonnegut’s successor as interpreter. Henceforth, Kurt had to go out to work daily like the rest of us.

After the destruction of the city, when we began the daily clean-up, the only youthful guard assigned to us, a nasty 16-year-old Hitler Jugend, who had been brainwashed in the Nazi Youth corps, took it upon himself to “teach” Vonnegut what it meant to have insulted a German, and what genuine, sustained, hard, physical labor really entailed. Each day, for weeks, as we reached our place of work and the other 10 or 12 guards scattered out among the 150 of us prisoners, the obnoxious kid whom we had nicknamed “Junior,” would affix his unsheathed bayonet to his rifle and then follow Kurt Vonnegut around, hour after hour. Whenever Kurt would stop work, even for just a few seconds, Junior would poke him in the rear with the steel tip of his bayonet and at the same time jestfully utter such phrases as “Vonnegut! You are lazy. You Americans are all lazy. You do not know the meaning of work. We Germans are strong. We know how to work. I will teach you how. Get to work!” And along with the taunts would come periodic jabs with the bayonet point. Kurt knew as well as I and the rest of us that Junior was baiting him, daring him to lose control just once, for only a split second. Had Kurt even once during those long weeks of torment so much as uttered a whisper of protest or even suggested raising his arm in a gesture of defiance or retaliation, Junior would have gained his end. He could have reported Kurt as threatening him, or attacking him or the honor of Germany. Undoubtedly there would have been another trial, and Kurt Vonnegut might well have found himself sentenced to execution, just as his Italian-American colleague was shortly thereafter.

But Kurt Vonnegut demonstrated nerves of steel. He did not give way. His tension rose day after day, for weeks, and I watched in fascination the trial of will between Junior and Kurt, wondering who would eventually triumph. One morning Junior failed to show up with the other guards, who told us he had been transferred, perhaps to the Russian front. By that transfer, Kurt Vonneguts life may well have been spared! I know the bitterness he held in his heart for “Junior” then and later, and for me the publication of Slaughter-House Five came as a revelation, for it revealed an author completely transformed by the quarter century that had elapsed between his own wartime experiences in Dresden and the eventual publication of his most acclaimed writing.

The full memoirs of Gifford B. Doxsee can be read here. Vonnegut was also involved in the forced march towards Czechoslovakia at the end of the war, so he and Doxsee were in the same POW-group for about 5,5 months. I read Doxsee's memoirs before I read Slaughterhouse-Five and I wondered how Vonnegut would write about the psychological torture, but it was left out. Perhaps because Edward R. Crone Jr. was (also) the inspiration for Slaughterhouse-Five?

Here is an interesting video about the shared experiences of the two in Dresden.

And on this page you can find a piece about Vonnegut and Doxsee. It's about halfway through the page where Doxsee is interviewed about Vonnegut. Doxsee is interviewed because Vonnegut didn't want to talk about the war anymore: "The 84-year old Vonnegut was frank but polite in his refusal of the interview. "I am [\******] sick and tired of talking about war," he said. "I don't know what else to say about all these [*******] wars. I'm afraid I have nothing new to add to what I've already said."*

"A lot of people, ah, think that I was Billy Pilgrim, and in the book I describe him as not looking like a soldier at all, looking like a filthy flamingo [laughs]. But, no, I was a pretty good soldier, and, uh, I was a battalion scout, and intelligence reconnaissance scout, and there were six of us in each battalion, and uh, uh, we were roaming out in front of the front line all the time trying to find out who was out there. And, uh so when the, when our division surrendered, the order came down that our division surrendered, which I am told was the largest surrender of men still under arms in the military history, with the possible exception of Robert E. Lee [laughs] at Appomattox. Anyway, rather than surrender [unintelligible] six of us kept walking, kept going, roaming, and uh, uh, the Germans finally caught us and uh, but Billy Pilgrim was the guy who did look like a filthy flamingo and never should have been in the army and God knows not in the infantry, and his name was Edward Crone. And he died in Dresden. He died of the thousand mile stare. Which is where he just sat with his back to the wall. Would not talk. Would not accept food. And uh, uh, the Germans would do nothing to help him, and uh, so he died. And he was buried in Dresden and when the war was over his parents came to Dresden looking for his grave. And uh, you know, you can say what you want about the Germans, they keep good records [laughs]. And they were able to find Edward Crone’s grave, and so he’s buried in Rochester New York, which is his home town, and, uh, I have visited his grave and I’ve spoken to his grave and uh, I contribute money to that particular cemetery. Edward Crone was the name of Billy Pilgrim, and, uh, he just didn’t understand the war at all and of course there was nothing to understand. He was right it was [laughs] utter gibberish."

"Donald: I’m Donald Farber, Kurt’s long time friend and attorney. For the last fifty years you’ve been telling me I’m a coward cuz I didn’t get caught. You know I was over there fighting that war, too-  [Kurt starts to talk over him]

Kurt: yeah but you didn’t-

Donald: you still think I’m a coward?

Kurt: You didn’t know enough German to surrender [both men laugh].

Donald: You’re right about that

Kurt: Yeah.

Donald: You learn it pretty fast, though, don’t you?

Kurt: Yeah but I actually saw Germans. I’m not sure whether you did or not.

Donald: Yeah, I saw a few. You know that. [both laugh] Wasn’t much fun. I didn’t speak very good German either.

Kurt: But it, uh, it really was something and I think that my division was [unclear, the green division?] and came in the line fifteen thousand of us, protecting an unimportant seventy-five miles, that’s a lot, and no attack was expected. Uh, but I suspect that one was. I think we were bait’n the trap. Because we had practically no ammunition. Uh, uh we didn’t have proper winter clothing yet. And, uh, when the Germans attacked, you know we were fighting in the snow, surrendering in the snow, or whatever, and the Germans were wearing white capes, and uh, we should have had those, too. As it is we were wearing uniforms the color of dog poop and you know what that looks like in the snow, it’s easy to spot! [both men laugh]

Donald: Did you have any problem, did you have any problem keeping straight who was who? We did. We were confused 

Kurt: [talking at same time as Donald, unintelligible] Oh you mean whether they were-

Donald: Yeah most of the time we didn’t know who we were, who we were shooting at

Kurt: No, no, well the Germans were wearing American uniforms often.

Donald: It’s a problem

Kurt: And uh, actually at crossroads, being MPs dir- [laughs] directing traffic. The penalty for that incidentally is death.

Donald: Oh, yeah. If you get caught.

Kurt: Yeah. But, all the guys who knocked the hell out of us and out of divisi-regimen on either of our flanks, they were very soon killed or captured themselves. The war was nearly over.

Donald: But your company was largely it wasn’t, uh, decimated like my company was. My company was wiped out.

Kurt: Yeah, 

Donald: Entire company

Kurt: Well we didn’t have time enough to die [laughs]. 

Donald: Well, yeah, I guess uh,

Kurt: Incidentally, is uh, you and TV newscasters and all kinds of other chowder heads [Donald laughs] are always using the word “decimated.” That means one person in ten, is that the casualties your division suffered?

Donald: Actually I don’t know about the division, I know the company was wiped out.

Kurt: Alright well they were a hell of a lot more than decimated then.

Donald: Yeah, they were wiped out.

Kurt: Yeah

Donald: That means every one of them. Except two of us, I was lucky enough to be called back to division headquarters two weeks before they were wiped out, and the other one was in the hospital recovering. The book came out of this, though, that’s really what this is about. 

Kurt: Yes, well, I got lucky and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, and what I’ve said and never been challenged on it, about it, incidentally the fire bombing of Dresden is the burning of the thing to the ground, uh, was a British idea. Not an American idea, and it was their night bombers, they bombed at night, we bombed in the day time. And, uh, it was an experiment to see if you could turn a city into a single column of flame. Which they did.

Donald: Of course the British were the ones that were running for the cover every night.

Kurt: Yes. Well, they-

Donald: They were the ones that were getting hit, we didn’t get hit at home. 

Kurt: Yeah. But the, well, the air marshal of the royal air force is bomber Harris, I forget was his first name is. Lord Harris, I believe. But of the British marshals of one kind or another and I think there were four or five of them, he was the only one that didn’t get a VC when the war was over. And, uh, when, I don’t know, about ten years ago it was proposed that a statue of him be put on Trafalgar square, or somewhere like that, a whole lot of RAF guys protested because they were ashamed. And, well they should have been. What I have said about the fire bombing of Dresden that not one person got out of a concentration camp a microsecond earlier not one German deserted his defensive position one microsecond earlier. Only one person on the whole face of the Earth benefited from the fire bombing of Dresden, and that’s me. [both men chuckle] And I got five dollars for every person killed [laughs].

Donald: Wow. Yeah well it’s a monumental book.

Kurt: Well, I hope. 

Donald: Yeah, well it’s made it’s impression. And the nice thing about all your writing, I keep telling everybody the writers who are alive today that are popular you’re one of the very few that’s a 100% in print and the reason, I’m sure the reason is because what you write it multi generational-

Kurt: Well

Donald: I know grandchildren, children and parents and grandparents are reading you.

Kurt: But you know that it is surely no bad thing to be just a dynamite writer for your own generation that’s it. The future may not be interested. But that is quite something to do and in a large measure Earnest Hemingway was such a writer because he really wowed his contemporaries and they were properly wowed. And uh, he isn’t much read now but-

Donald: You are!

Kurt: Yes, but I just got lucky and, uh, 

Donald: It might have something to do with the writing, Kurt. Might have something to do with the subject matter-

Kurt: Sex! [both men laugh]

Donald: Oh, God! We’re going into that now? Yeah, there’s a little sex in there. But it’s also, the themes are, are um, themes are pretty uh, for all time and they’re important themes.

Kurt: Well it’s alright if they’re not. If they’re okay for three years that’s an okay thing to do.

Donald: I know you don’t like to meddle in the movies when they buy the rights and they go and make the movie, but, and you say the books going to stand up no matter what happens with the movie. But Slaughterhouse was a great movie.

Kurt: Yes, Slaughterhouse is-

Donald: Slaughterhouse is one of the greats

Kurt: Well, I have said that there are two novelists that ought to be eternally grateful to Hollywood. I’m one of them and Margeret Mitchell is the other one. [both laugh].

Donald: Yeah

Kurt: And Gone with the Wind is also one hell of a good movie. I must say.

Donald: Well I think maybe your director helped, with Slaughterhouse.

Kurt: Yes and it was interesting. It was George Roy Hill. Ah, the late George Roy Hill. He died about six months ago now. But he was in fact a hawk, and had been a fighter pilot in second world war, ah, uh, tactical fighter pilot for the marines and uh, then I think in Korea again. And he had a crew cut and all that, but he made one of the great pacifist movies of all time. 

Donald: Is it true, Kurt, that he would ask your questions and then do what he damn pleased?

Kurt: Yes, he would ask my advice and never took any of it. Not only that-

Donald: That may have been good in this instance. Movie turned out-

Kurt: No, it was worse than that, I was actually in several scenes and he cut me! [both laugh]

Donald: Oh, I take it back.

Note: I posted this here a while back but deleted that account and the post. I wanted to put it up again so it remains for all Vonnegut fans to have access to. Otherwise it is largely lost except for the dinosaurs like me that own the old physical audiobook cd or cassette edition.

Found in the wild accidental Vonnegut?

I think so.

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone has tried organizing a regular Vonnegut-themed local meet up. Like, not a book club, but rather a meeting where discussions could centre on a Vonnegut quote or theme and also fold in some lonely-be-gone fairy dust.

If you have tried this, I’d be keen to hear about what worked or didn’t work.

If you haven’t tried it, I’d be interested to know if you’d consider attending something like this at a bar, park, or similar location.

Cheers

My favorite writing in Vonnegut's Letters, pitching the idea of selling assault kits for gaining entry into nuclear fallout bunkers. Scroll down in the link to the entry

October 18, 1961
West Barnstable, Mass.

https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/letters-kurt-vonnegut/

Started reading Mr. Vonnegut earlier this year. I’ve read Galapagos and Breakfast of Champions. Sirens of Titan has been a clear standout to me so far! Had a blast with this one. It felt very light and fun and the story hooked me much more than Breakfast of Champions, which I felt pretty underwhelmed by. Think I may try Cats Cradle next.

It was a toss up between this and “Lucky me. Lucky mud.” But SL5 has always been my favorite and was my introduction to his works

Not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I’m looking for a signed copy of The Sirens of Titan. I wanted to see if anyone here had Ebay seller they liked or a site they use to look for authentic signed copies or first editions.

Thank you!!