The Ninja Reader

You know, I often don't get classics. It's not that I don't like them, but I find them hard to review. High school will do that to you - you pick up a book and suddenly you don't feel confident enough to like it or dislike it because it was obviously written in a different place at a different time which you, of course, cannot dream of comprehending. And the book has passed the test of time, what more proof do you want of awesomeness?That being said, I also do know that sometimes classics are not all that good, and just because someone decided that the book deserves to be dissected in school doesn't mean that it's great. Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five" is a very poignant novel. It's told with respect and delicacy towards the subject, and the anti-war message is conveyed in a strong, visceral way. I also think that the jumping between the scenes approach taken by the author is very in-tune with the protagonists' constant jumps through time. It's a very good approach.However, I really did not get the whole sci-fi sub-plot. Sure, the time-travelling can be used as a metaphor of the protagonist being trapped in his memories after the war, but the ailens? What do they stand for? Emotional breakdown? Emotional comfort? Or perhaps a convenient plot device for the author to add up a few more pages to the novel? Was Vonnegut payed by the word? I don't know why that particular plot point irked me so much, but it pissed me off enough to give this novel a three out of five.