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Title: Compare with Private Ryan
Review: Just a thought on the anti-war theme: compare the totalsenselessness of Billy Pilgrim's presence in Europe (as he stumblesaround comically in his circus clothes) to the theoretically condemning but in fact celebratory aura surrounding Speilberg's little band of virtuous men fighting the Germans. Even though the specific mission seemed meaningless, in Private Ryan the lager war makes perfect sense--we have to hold this bridge so the artillery can't cross, so the Germans can't gain the advantage, etc. In Slaughterhouse Five, the larger war is given no story to justify it, we are simply dropped (like Billy) into the chaos and senselessness of war, and never given a coherent narrative with which to make sense of it. That is why, it seems to me, Slaughtehouse Five is a brilliant anti-war novel, and Private Ryan is more of the same old s***.
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