Dec 192018

A Duty-Dance with Death

is a novel by Kurt Vonnegut, written in 1969. It is an anti-war science fiction story about World War 2 told by Billy Pilgrim.

Alternative title: The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death

Billy Pilgrim travels through time. He said he was once taken by aliens to their planet Tralfamadore, where he had lived for an uncertain amount of time. Since then, he got the ability of the Tralfamadorians to travel through time and space.

[wp-post-author align=”right” image-layout=”round” title=”About Author”]

Billy was a young soldier who fought in World War 2 in Germany and experienced the bombings of Dresden. When he became older, he worked as an optometrist but was taken a lunatic for he told his family about his time-travelling. 

The story is jumping in time and space, just as the main character does. In particular, it is a novel against war. Kurt Vonnegut promised to show the cruelty of war in his book, for he himself experienced the bombings in Dresden as a soldier in World War 2 when he was almost a child.