Fergus, Weaver of Autistic Webs's Reviews > Slaughterhouse-Five

Life can be so unutterably sad.

That in a nutshell was my early life; and Kurt Vonnegut’s life.

And young Billy’s too.

But Vonnegut was American, and so was I (by birth at least) - and so is Billy Pilgrim.

And Americans always jazz up their sadness.

And that’s what they all did to get themselves through the War. Big Bands became the perfect anodyne to stark terror.

And zany behaviour - my own, Vonnegut’s and Billy’s - became the preferred personal way for American bullied innocents to jazz up their sadness.
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Living in a meat cooler under a city while your country is Decimating that city can only leave a traumatic scar.

BIG TIME.

So you jazz it up big time yourself - you start to prefer your mini-vacations on Trafalmador over more mundane hot spots.

Like, for example, foxholes.

So it goes, with Kurt and Billy, and me, and with cringing, bullied kids like us EVERYWHERE. Because where there is carrion like us there the crows gather. And crows don’t even chew you before swallowing.

And they have gizzards to take care of your bones.

You know, had Kurt Vonnegut been a believer he might have considerably mollified his trauma.

Or even reading books by and about declared Aspies, like I do now, may have helped do the trick.

But alas, dear Kurt, back then they shot first and asked questions later.

If they’d have heard you were an Aspie back then they would have leered and just told you to keep marching and shut up.

No wonder their Jazz was in as much demand as a good, stiff drink back then.

For you too, Kurt - you picked up their old-time jazzy zaniness...

And just marched on into doomed Dresden -

Dreaming of long-lost Tralfamador.