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In reply to the discussion: Do You Have a Fictional Book That You Have Read Several Times? [View all]Victor_c3
(3,557 posts)I'm a huge fan of Slaughterhouse Five and Blue Beard.
Slaughterhouse Five in particular really hits a chord with me. I first read it in 2002 when I first graduated college. I was actually going through Infantry Officer Basic Course as I was a brand new 2nd Lieutenant in the Army. I thought it was a good read, but it really didn't hit a nerve in me then.
I spent 13 months in Iraq as a Platoon Leader from Feb 2004 through March 2005. A year or so after I got back from Iraq I remember reading it again. This time, it had much more meaning to me - especially the secondary title "The Children's Crusade". I came back from Iraq deeply troubled by my war experiences. In the prolog section of the book the wife of a good friend Vonnegut was interviewing mentioned that all Soldiers are just children. Media portrays them in movies as adults and grown men in their 30s, but in fact wars are fought by guys in the late teen years or early twenties.
A couple of years later I picked up the book again (probably around 2012) after I had been dealing with severe and worsening PTSD symptoms and the book absolutely hit me hard. Kurt Vonnegut was describing PTSD and what it is like to deal with it almost to a 'T' decades before it became a formal diagnosis. The whole thing where the main character becomes unstuck in time and travels back and forth between different parts of his life is basically describing flashbacks. The emotional detachment he experiences and the sort of way he just bumbles through the remainder of his life is exactly what I feel.
After reading that book, I felt like I had a lot in common with Kurt Vonnegut. I majored in Chemistry in college and so did Vonnegut. Also, the VA hospital Vonnegut spent some time in after being liberated from the POW camp in Dresden was in my home town. He served as an Infantryman in WWII and I was one in Iraq. As far as I can tell, my political views align with much of his as well.