"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on a full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae."
Slaughterhouse Five, like many of Vonnegut's novels, are largely based on the author's life. He reveals so much about things he has experienced, many of which are traumatizing or highly personal. He offers himself, completely unguarded and completely truthful, a mushy mess of strong emotions, like a hot fudge sundae. For reviewers to attack his work is completely unfair, as critics are often guarded by a pseudonym, a company name or their critical authority. It is often easier to criticize harshly, than to applaud.
Although in Slaughterhouse, Vonnegut admits some details have been altered and many of his experiences are masked by those of Billy Pilgrim. "All this happened more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true". Billy Pilgrim's war experiences are very similar to Vonnegut's, Billy Pilgrim might even be Vonnegut. Thus, Vonnegut is near completely laying out his past for anyone who reads the novel to see.
Some examples of Billy Pilgrim's experiences;
- being a social outcast during the war
- coming to terms with war and it's effects
- being emotionally and physically inferior
- humiliation by Roland Weary and German guards
- Dresden fire-bombing
- clearing away dead civilian bodies
Many of these we known Vonnegut himself experienced, things no one has ever gone through. It isn't fair to express rage and loathing towards something we do not completely understand.
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