BANNED BOOKS WEEK: SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE and Freedom of Speech

BANNED BOOKS WEEK
Post #3

SLAUGHTER-HOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut

I happen to think that SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE is an excellent, even special, novel. It introduced me to the writings of the late Kurt Vonnegut, inspiring me to find and read his other novels and his short stories.I'm not alone in my praise: SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE is considered a classic, as well as being popular. But there exists also a minority opinion. This novel has been roundly condemned, challenged, banned, and yes, Virginia, copies of SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE have been BURNED! A whopping 32 copies were destroyed by fire, in a high school coal furnace, in North Dakota, in 1973, at the behest of the school board head. A school board in Levittown, New York, proclaimed: " anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and just plain filthy.” That condemnation resulted in a 1982 Supreme Court, with the Court declaring on the side of First Amendment freedom of speech. The challenges and rampant outrage have extended into the 21st century: a Missouri State University professor, a man who homeschool his children, yet insisted this and other books disappear from the local school system.

In summary, a quote from Kurt Vonnegut's letter to the Drake County, North Dakota School Board head (who had ordered the book's burning) expressed it all:

" Books are sacred to free men for very good reasons, and that wars have been fought against nations which hate books and burn them. If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own . . . it was a rotten lesson you taught young people in a free society when you denounced and then burned books – books you hadn’t even read. You should also resolve to expose your children to all sorts of opinions and information, in order that they will be better equipped to make decisions and to survive."

Challenged: Multiple
Banned: Multiple
Burnt: 32 copies, high school coal furnace, at order of school board head
Author's impassioned plea for intellectual freedom

Review: SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut

As a lifelong voracious reader, I had no doubt been aware of SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE since its publication. But until I chose to read it for Banned Books Week 2017, I had never read it, nor indeed any Vonnegut. {I know, lapse in my education.}

I find Vonnegut quite enjoyable (despite the grievous setting of the story). He is wry, ironic, humble. {I might contrast another famed author of the period, "literary lion" Norman Mailer, or of an earlier period, William Burroughs.} Vonnegut never pretends omniscience, much less omnipotence, nor does he attribute either quality to his feckless "hero," the well-named Billy Pilgrim. Billy's travels through time each time he becomes "unstuck" are a marvel, and this reader can't help but empathize with this individual who not only follows the beat of a different drummer, but faces wrath and disdain as he maintains his truth. Even in the presence of mockery, Billy Pilgrim, bless his feckless heart, manages to "speak Truth to Power." The history of attempted censorship of this novel proves that Billy Pilgrim's quest to do exactly that lives on. I wish that I had read SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE decades ago, and I know I will be rereading it, searching for further and deeper meaning, very soon.