Vonnegut and Zusak in cohorts?

As I began getting into Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, I was strongly reminded of Markus Zusak's novel The Book Thief. The Book Thief is set in Germany during WWII and gives the story of several civilians during the war. The narrator is Death. This is a strange way to narrate, but adds an element of "science fiction" that is similar to using Tralfamadore in a war novel. Both of these books seem to use their respective unrealistic aspects in order to make less honorable and more gruesome parts of the war have a stronger impact in the readers mind.

Right away, I noticed several similarities between the two novels and wondered if perhaps the two others might have fed off of each others ideas at all. After doing a little research, I did not find any conclusive evidence but did find a quote from Time Magazine agreeing with the similarities I am seeing "Zusak doesn’t sugarcoat anything, but he makes his ostensibly gloomy subject bearable the same way Kurt Vonnegut did in Slaughterhouse-Five: with grim, darkly consoling humor.” 


 In Slaughterhouse-Five, the Tralfamadorians discuss the structure of a moment like being stuck in amber. No one can change what happens because that is just how it is structured and always has and always will be. The Book Thief also gives a great importance to moments, but the narrator of Death describes them in terms of colors. Both novels also jump around quite a bit. Vonnegut has Billy Pilgrim jumping through time much more than Zusak uses this element, but Death also jumps around in time in his narrations.

The most striking similarity I found in Vonnegut and Zusak's style of telling a "war story" was the approach of flat out telling what is going to happen to a character before it happens, in particular telling how and when a character is going to die. In both novels, this worked to break the hope of the reader who is holding onto the possibility that said characters will make it through. There is always a part of me that wants the happy, or at least satisfying, ending for a character so knowing about their death in advance makes it sadder for me when it actually happens. Knowing and being reminded of Derby's death so often makes it difficult and all the more heart wrenching to read passages where Derby is writing to his wife not to worry because he "will be home soon."

Although Vonnegut and Zusak may not have been in cohorts while writing their books, both approach the "war novel" from a very different angle. Neither glorifies the war but rather present it in a way that makes WWII look pathetic and something to be ashamed of on both sides.