Books: The Price of Survival

SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE, OR THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 186 pages. Delacorte. $5.95.

Rabbits, we are told, have mercifully been provided with short memories because they are so constantly prey to the threat of being killed. They would go mad with fear and despair if they could remember the past. Men seldom realize it, Kurt Vonnegut suggests in his latest novel, but they have more in common with rabbits than they like to think. Except that men forget on purpose, and are a prey to one another.

The occasion for these and other reflections is...

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