Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut

I kept thinking of circles when I read this novel (things he brought up would be brought back in a different form). It kind of reminded me of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe in that sense (though Vonnegut did it in a different way, with a different function).

I don't mean the non-linear storytelling, though that's part of it. I mean that he would bring up random images and they'd come back later - like the blue and ivory feet, the serenity prayer and the pornographic picture of the woman and the horse. Are those triggers for Pilgrim's PTSD? (well, I suppose not the serenity prayer, really).

I don't think I really liked this novel. It's worth a read, obviously and there's a lot to it. If I remember correctly (which sometimes I don't), Vonnegut was the one who tried to make his writing seem effortless even though he spent hours refining his work. I don't mean this in the sense that his work reads almost like a first draft (it flows well and seems to lack depth, though there's a story) - I suppose I mean it in the sense that his writing comes off as kind of simplistic.

However, there's so much and it's funny because I suppose it would read "effortlessly" but I don't think that it was something that seemed un-orchestrated (which is what Vonnegut is trying to go for). It's pretty obvious that he's up to something (I mean c'mon now, blue and ivory? That's so not a coincidence.) but he does make the reader do a lot of the connecting.

His writing has black humor, it's depressing and honestly, it's a pretty bleak outlook on life. However, he's still an interesting and easy read so I suppose I'd give my somewhat better-than-mediocre response to an interested reader.