The IU South Bend Veterans Book Club will be meeting virtually at 5:30 on Wednesday October 28 to discuss the novel Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
Chris Lafave, from the Vonnegut Museum in Indianapolis, will be leading the discussion. He has suggested some questions to get the conversation going.
- Who are your favorite/least favorite characters in this book?
- Do the ‘autobiographical’ sections at the beginning and end of the book add or detract from the novel?
- In the introduction, Vonnegut writes, “. . . there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.” Is this borne out in the somewhat nonsensical story that follows?
- Some critics have argued this book has anti-semitic passages. Does this seem justified?
- What does this quote from the end of the novel tell us about Vonnegut, “My father died many years ago now – of natural causes. So it goes. He was a sweet man. He was a gun nut, too. He left me his guns. They rust.”
For more information, or to get the Zoom link, please contact Rhonda Culbertson, rculbert@iusb.edu. The book club is open to everyone interested in good books and good conversation. Please consider joining us!