On This Date in History, November 10, 1973, newspapers report the burning of 36 copies of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Vonneguts book was a combination of real events and science fiction. His hero, Billy Pilgrim, was a World War II soldier who witnessed the firebombing of Dresden, as had Vonnegut himself. Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time and thereafter lives a double existence-one life on an alien planet where a resigned acceptance of inevitable doom expresses itself philosophically in the hopeless locution And so it goes. In his life on Earth, Pilgrim preaches the same philosophy. Some found the books pessimistic outlook and black humor unsuitable for school children. Many more would say that burning books is about as Un-American as you can get.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 08:30:40 +0000
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