The DU Lounge

Last edited Sun Sep 14, 2025, 04:02 PM - Edit history (1)

They claim it's "All this happened more or less..." in Slaughter House Five.

It's in the first "chapter," I concede, but the first chapter of the book is not the first chapter of the tale. The greatest beginning line of all, for my money, in all of English literature, happens in the "second" chapter - the first chapter about Billy Pilgrim - of that book where the story actually begins.

That sentence is "Listen."

In the late 1960's, when Slaughterhouse Five was written, it was still an era of American triumphalism over victory in what was called "The Good War" in which Vonnegut became a captured American soldier during the Battle of the Bulge, and was carried off to a prisoner of war camp in Dresden, shortly before the city was firebombed.

That single one word imperative sentence calls for the reader to understand, as Vonnegut clearly did, there is no such thing as a "Good War." At the time, no one was hearing that, listening.

That rich succinct and powerful line changed my life. "Listen," was the greatest opening line of any story in anytime in my estimation. Pynchon and Heller both wrote World War II novels, and both are represented on the cup, but "Listen," beats them all, although it's not on the cup.