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Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt VonnegutWhen literary critics and everyday readers started rewinding to pick their favourite novels of the centu...

Slaughterhouse-Five
by Kurt Vonnegut

When literary critics and everyday readers started rewinding to pick their favourite novels of the century past, there were few points of agreement. Ulysses must have pride of place, intoned the experts. No, that honour must go to Atlas Shrugged, countered readers in Net polls. On Slaughterhouse-Five, one of the great anti-war novels, however, there was unanimity. The experts put it at 18, readers squeezed it in at 23. Same difference, really. Here’s an excerpt from the book:

“All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn’t his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on.

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“I really did go back to Dresden with Guggenheim money (God love it) in 1967. It looked a lot like Dayton, Ohio, more open spaces than Dayton has. There must be tons of human bone meal in the ground.

“I went back with an old war buddy, Bernard V. O’Hare, and we made friends with a cab driver, who took us to the slaughterhouse where we had been locked up as prisoners of war.”

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday expresses deep condolences to those affected in the Kurnool bus fire tragedy that claimed lives of at least 12 people. He also offered an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh from PMNRF that would be given to the next of kin of each deceased. The injured would be given Rs 50,000.

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