A Country at War (Part 1a) - The Art of Slaughterhouse 5 (Complete)

 

Above are a few examples of the numerous editions of Kurt Vonnegut's 1969 novel Slaughterhouse Five (or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death), compiled by Emily Temple (2019) and found in the Literary Hub article, The 50 Best Slaughterhouse Five Covers from Around Around the World.

From upper left to lower right (publisher, language, date): Vintage Classics (USA) 2024, Points (French), 2016, Knygos (Lithuanian), 2017, Mondadori (Italian), 1988.

The Rosy Spade meme has taken me to some pretty strange places since the first day I envisioned it, on February 13th of this year. And, it's been a long and winding road. There is no real way of rationalizing this journey. I seem to be unconsciously following some intuited breadcrumb trail with no consciously known goal. And, weirdly enough, those dates, February 13 and 14, seem to  keep popping up throughout my research like little red flags, although not necessarily in a Friday the 13th nor a Valentine's Day aspect..  

Recently, the name Kurt Vonnegut came to me... as I compulsively grappled with how best to describe the present (absurd) state of American affairs (an unfortunate factor that can't be dismissed). It's as if someone whispered it in my ear. Eureka!, I thought, Kurt Vonnegut, exactly. The second thought that came to my mind was Slaughterhouse Five, a novel I once read in my rebellious, energetic youth... a time when many of us still believed everything could, should, and would eventually make sense. Vonnegut warned us about that delusion. But, like most children, we didn't listen.

Inset left is a photo of Vonnegut with his signature unfiltered Pall Mall which he unapologetically chain-smoked until his (unrelated) death at the age of 84.

As it happened, in keeping with the Rosy Spade's "birthday,"  February 13 & 14 would put in an appearance once again... in the darkest of ways. Read on.

Kurt Vonnegut believed in the power of art. If he hadn't he would never have had the courage, stamina or creative fire to complete his 1969 novel, Slaughterhouse Five, based upon his horrifying experiences during the bombing of Dresden (which began on the night of February 13, and continued throughout February 14, till the 15th, 1945) near the end of World War II; an undertaking which took him over 20 years to accomplish.

 It is now considered the pre-eminent anti-war novel of its time... possibly, of all time. And it's numerous, international incarnations over the past 57 years give testament to the novel's lasting power and relevance. But, it came at a great cost. The memory of the harrowing experience which compelled Vonnegut to write the novel never entirely left him.

Inset right is the cover of the Mladá fronta (Czech) edition from 1973. It has a great graphic treatment which seems to add it's own dimension to the story. And, you might say, this is true across the board. Art interprets art. Does language play any part in this process? Take, for instance, the most painterly and elegant of the editions, the French edition, with the less harsh-sounding title of "Abattoir 5."

Abattoir, Abatorul, Bitúnok, Jatka, Lò mổ, Matadouro, Mattatoio, Mezbaha, Rzeźnia Schlachthof, Slakthus, Skerdykla, Slachthuis, Slagtehal, Teurastamo... Who knew there were so many diverse ways to say the word "slaughterhouse"?

Inset left is a German edition published by  HoCa-Belletristik in 2016. Note it's sophisticat design but somewhat grim image ... and then compare it to the Lithuanian edition with the huge, cartoonish bird, or the Italian edition with the comic book action graphic. While each is powerful in its own way, they might be covers from different novels altogether.

Importantly, Slaughterhouse Five is a difficult novel to portray in a single graphic image. It is not your standard novel. Below is its (lengthy) title page, fashioned like a prose poem and not as straightforward as we might wish. It almost stands as a reminder: what you are about to read is not an ordinary novel; it is intended to represent a new literary (schizoid) art form.*

____________________________________________________________________________________________

Slaughterhouse-Five

OR THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE:

A DUTY DANCE WITH DEATH BY

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

A FOURTH-GENERATION GERMAN-AMERICAN

NOW LIVING IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES

ON CAPE COD (AND SMOKING TOO MUCH),

WHO AS AN AMERICAN INFANTRY SCOUT

HORS DE COMBAT,

AS A PRISONER OF WAR,

WITNESSED THE FIRE-BOMBING

OF DRESDEN, GERMANY,

“THE FLORENCE OF THE ELBE,”

A LONG TIME AGO,

AND SURVIVED TO TELL THE TALE.

THIS IS A NOVEL SOMEWHAT IN THE

TELEGRAPHIC SCHIZOPHRENIC MANNER

OF TALES OF THE PLANET TRALFAMADORE,

WHERE THE FLYING SAUCERS COME FROM.

PEACE.

____________________________________________________________________________________________

So, although at its heart it is an anti-war story, it is a also a historical novel based on fact. It is a semi-biographical novel.  It is also, very possibly, a thinly-veiled case-study of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. But, beyond that, it is an existentialist, absurdist commentary and a satire.

And, yet, what most of the Slaughterhouse 5 book jackets fail to convey, is that the novel is also, both in spirit and fact, a science-fiction tale. It has all the qualifying elements: time travel, an exoplanet and an alien abduction involving some very freaky extraterrestrials.

How freaky? Well, the Vintage Press edition introducing this post - the falling hand with the central eye - actually represents an alien intelligence.

Inset left is one book jacket which carries the science fiction theme further. In it's almost childlike illustration we're confronted by a destitute soldier crouching next to what appears to be a unusual plant-like creature with a body resembling a toilet bowel plunger topped by a hand-shaped head with a single green eye in the center. This entity is a Tralfamadorian who (pun intended?) helps Billy Pilgrim become "unstuck" in time. In other words, unless the creature is in disguise, it is clearly a metaphor.**

Tralfamadore is also discussed in this Post-Mac Blues cross-post: A Post-Birthday Greeting from Tralfamadore.

(Continued below the break...)

Valentine's Day of the Dead (Part III) - A Country at War (Revised July 16, 2026)

 

Queen of Spades - screen print - 2022, Mahdieh Farhadkiaei

"In Iranian culture, women have historically cut their hair off in mourning, and over the past week we have seen videos of women snipping their locks at the funerals of loved ones killed by security forces. The act has also become a symbol of bodily autonomy and resistance against the oppressive regime."

- Via the 2022 Guardian article: Something in me sparked’: the Iranian women using art to protest.

"To walk among Iran’s rose gardens in spring is to experience a sensory and cultural journey. The air is thick with the heady scent of blossoms; the early morning sun glints off dew-laden petals; villagers hum songs while harvesting; poets and painters find inspiration in the delicate folds of each bloom. It is a celebration of nature, art, community, and history—a testament to a love affair that has endured for millennia.

In Iran, the rose is more than a flower. It is  memory, passion, spirituality, and identity rolled into a single, fragrant bloom. It embodies the Iranian understanding of beauty and impermanence, connecting the material and the divine, the ordinary and the transcendent. It is, quite simply, the flower of the nation’s heart."

- Excerpted from the online article: Iran’s Enduring Love Affair with the Rose. This information was, believe it or not, new to me and represented yet another thread in the weird web of synchronicities I found myself entangled in.

As it so happens, from mid-May to mid-June in the province of the ancient and beautiful city of Isfahan, Iran, there is the thousand-year old festival of Golab giri, a celebration of rosewater made from the fragrant Damask Rose (inset right), Iran's national flower which grows in abundance there. 

 

•

"I am like a schoolchild madly

in love with her geometry books.

I am forlorn

and imagine it is possible to take the garden to a hospital.

I imagine I imagine

And the garden’s heart has swollen in the heat

of this sun, its mind slowly drains of its lush memories."

- From I Pity the Garden, a poem written by beloved Iranian poet, film-maker, artist and feminist writer Forugh Farrokhzad (December 29, 1934 - February 13, 1967) and translated by Sholeh Wolpé.

Previously in the poem she mourns: "Our neighbors plant bombs and machine guns, instead of flowers, in their garden soil.
They cover their ponds, hiding bags of gunpowder..." and, "I fear the age that has lost its heart, the idleness of so many hands
the alienation in so many faces."

Often compared to Sylvia Plath, her poetry has a similar sense of urgency and rebellion. Their lives shared a similar tragic cast. Unlike Plath, however, Farrokhzad's  material can be wildly erotic and, at the same time, in the Persian tradition of Rumi, the Rose & the Nightingale and the Language of the Birds, strangely mystical.*

I am particularly moved by the line "I fear the age that has lost its heart."

I fear that age is now.

(Continued below the jump...)

Valentine's Day of the Dead (Part II) (Completed 6/16/26)

A rosy Ace of Spades playing card with a 3 pence royal duty stamp - c. 1868 (?) -
possibly designed by artist and architect Owen Jones; printed and distributed by Thomas De La Rue & Co., London.

"With this in mind, I had an epiphany. I envisioned a white rose opening in the center of the spade symbol... so clearly that I was sure I had seen it before. And, it began to haunt me the way the Rose Pentacle haunted me in the early days."

- Quoting myself from Part I of this series in which I intuited a symbol representing the weird synergy presented by Friday the 13th, normally an ominous day, transitioning into Valentine's Day, the official day of love and friendship; a rare occurrence and an odd conjunction... the spade as an inverted heart, and vice versa.

Of course, my first inclination at the time was to interpret it in a darkly romantic way... a deathless (or clandestine) love kind of way. And, while I wasn't exactly wrong, I found clues to inform me that, relative to our Kafkaesque times, I was missing the greater picture. I was overlooking the shadows.

In any case, I did eventually find an image of a white rose in the center of an Ace of Spades. (See  above). This occurred in the midst of a constellation of synchronicities, a few of which I discuss on PMB in the post Hidden Synchronicities (of the Memetic Kind).

The image wasn't quite what I envisioned - the rose was much too large and clearly it's context was strictly an official one. But, it was intriguing nonetheless... a rosy spade surrounded by thistles and clover. Only later did I find that this trinity of plants is a reference to the British Flower badge, a heraldic device which symbolizes the union of England (Tudor rose), Ireland (shamrock) and Scotland (thistle). Sometimes Wales is also represented... by a leek, or a daffodil. Inset left is the Badge of the Yeoman of the Guard.

But, there's more. Because I found the coveted white rose/Ace of Spades symbol quite unexpectedly... in the Wiki entry for a 19th century British card maker, Richard Harding, in spite of the fact that the image was first printed by Thomas de la Rue long after Harding's death. That beng said, it was within the tale of Richard Harding that I found The Shadow.

Harding's was a rather strange, gothic story. It began in eighteenth century England with a tax levied on playing cards.

"Initially duty was paid and a random card in the pack was hand stamped to show it had been paid, but in 1765 the Ace of Spades was given a special design and designated as the card on which duty would be shown as paid.

The Ace of Spades was stamped using a metal plate and designed to be hard to copy – hence it’s detailed features."

But, apparently it was not too hard to copy... and Richard Harding got away with it for quite awhile.

He rented some space in a building owned by a certain Mr. Skeleton in order to carry out his "nefarious business." And, really, if this were a spooky movie, you might consider yourself forewarned.

While Mr. Skeleton did initially claim ignorance of Harding's forgery operation, "this, however, was cast into doubt when 2,000 aces of spades were found in his home." 

Harding also had a daughter. More cards were found at the bottom of her laundry basket... "money laundering" ? Anyway, this is all we know about Ms. Harding... and ditto for Mr Skelton. It's a very short story.

Suffice to say, Harding was tried and found guilty of a capital offense at London's Old Bailey, and on November 13, 1805, he - “a genteel looking man, powdered and dressed in black” - was executed by hanging, very possibly at the notorious Newgate Prison. He was 35 years old.

"His remains were at St George Hanover Square Burial Ground in Bayswater until 12 March 1969, when he - and others - were removed to Lambeth and cremated."

The upshot being that less than 30 years later (1832) the Forgery, Abolition of Punishment of Death Act was enacted, abolishing the death penalty for all offences of forgery, except for forging wills and certain powers of attorney.

This, however, did not remove the stain from the Ace of Spades, and to this day it maintains a sinister reputation.

•

Source material for this section was also found in Death by Hanging, and the BBC's The man hanged for printing his own ace of spades.

Inset left: A tarot card depicting the Hanged Man (Le Pendu), the 12th key of the Major Arcana from the "Gringonneur" deck.

(This post continues below the break...)

A (Belated) Valentine's Day of the Dead Interlude (complete)

(March 4, 2025. No one is more sorry than I that this post has been so stalled this past week. In my defense, the Spade symbol is the heaviest and most complex I have ever encountered. More importantly, geometrically, the Spade is a pentagonal construction, and, come to find out, an important - although hidden - element of the Golden Meme. And, in the context of current events, a Key. Bear with me. Information will be posted continuously until completion. 🌺DS)

The White Rose & the Ace of Spades

A white rose ghosted over a darkened plane

is a sigil of love transformed.

Yes, even the darkest of shapes,

the Ace of Spades,

- a black heart impaled on a single thorn -

can't hide the light of its central, star-like eye

which, in the dead of night,

 opens and closes.

- 2026, DS. (revised March 2, 2026)

Rosa Mystica

***

"The story of St Valentine’s Day begins with some unknown medieval birdwatchers, probably in France rather than England, who reckoned that birds begin mating in mid-February, and decided to give this a precise date: 14 February. (They may have followed some folk tradition – in Slovenia this is still said to be the first day of spring, when plants start growing, and birds mate.) As was normal at that period, they expressed the date as the feast-day of a saint; in the Catholic Church every day in the year celebrates at least one saint, and for a public who had no printed calendars it was easier to remember dates by names than by figures. It happens that 14 February is dedicated to one or other of two early Roman martyrs, both named Valentinus, believed to have died on that date."

- Via an article from the Folklore Society.

 Possibly the sweetest thing about Valentine's Day is that it likely began with the recognized mating habits of birds... avian love... the kind of love everybody can celebrate. The martyrdom of saints, however, is an element we might want to dismiss. Well, most of us anyway.

February 26, 2026,

Perhaps, I should explain.

The poem, The White Rose & the Ace of Spades, was initiated days ago... specifically 13 days ago, on Friday the 13th... which, as it happened, fell on Valentine's Day Eve this year (2026). Apparently, the last time this "holiday" conjunction occured was in 2015. The next occurs in 2032.

I see now that it was extensively joked about on social media prior to the event with many mashups involving Jason from the slasher film franchise Friday the 13th, with a few Goth-inspired offerings announcing Darkwave raves. Somebody even made up a new holiday: Valloween! Gotta love it.

To add to our dark pleasures, the latest remake of Wuthering Heights premiered this Valentine's Day raking in billions of $$$. "Wuthering Heights" (with apostrophes) is (allegedly) heavily erotic... which could be a good thing. But, Catherine Earnshaw has been morphed into the requisite, vulnerable blonde and, being more or less a WH purist, I find this as problematic as I would a blond Heathcliff. Obviously, I've yet to see the movie though, so, no review is forthcoming. However, the review I linked to had this to say: "So essentially what we're getting at is that Wuthering Heights is a smutty fan fiction fever dream written by a 14-year-old."

In other words, it can't be all that bad! ;-)

In any case, something tells me that the darkly romantic Love-Beyond-Death meme is in full swing this year, so allow me to elucidate...

(Elucidation lies below the jump) ;-)