Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is… I lack words to describe it, actually. It’s sad and it’s not sad at all. It’s cruel and it’s beautiful. It is a powerful moral statement all the while being not moralising. Most of all, it’s compassionate.

Take a look for yourself: (In this scene, they are in a train, captured as prisoners of war in Germany on their way to prison/work camp)

And Billy let himself down oh so gradually now, hanging onto the diagonal cross-brace in the corner in order to make himself seem nearly weightless to those he was joining on the floor. He knew it was important that he made himself nearly ghostlike when lying down. He had forgotten why, but a reminder soon came.
‘Pilgrim,’ said a person he was about to nestle with, ‘is that you?’
Billy didn’t say anything, but nestled very politely, closed his eyes.
‘God damn it’ said the person. ‘That is you, isn’t it?’ He sat up and explored Billy rudely with his hands. ‘It’s you, all right. Get the hell out of here.’
Now Billy sat up, too-wretched, close to tears.
‘Get out of here! I want to sleep!’
‘Shut up,’ said somebody else.
‘I’ll shut up when Pilgrim gets away from here.’
So Billy stood up again, clung to the cross-brace. ‘Where can I sleep?’ he asked quietly.
‘Not with me.’
‘Not with me, you son of a bitch,’ said somebody else. ‘You yell. You kick.’
‘I do?’
“You’re God damn right you do. And whimper.’
‘I do?’
‘Keep the hell away from here, Pilgrim.’
And now there was an acrimonious madrigal, with parts sung in all quarters of the car. Nearly everybody seemingly, had an atrocity story of something Billy Pilgrim had done to him in his sleep. Everybody told Billy Pilgrim to keep the hell away.

It’s an amazing book. I loved every word.

One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.

Read it, if you haven’t already. But be sure you have something light to read afterwards.