Jeff's Am Lit blog

And now we come to the rather abrupt end of a rather abrupt book, an alien-filled, time-traveling, bombed-out surface-of-the-moon style World War Two book. If I didn’t have to write about it, I would have rather enjoyed it. I still did enjoy it, just to a lesser degree. Thanks, Mrs. Jensen.

This last section of the book builds on my last post, as Billy continues to stay in the moment instead of jumping to all the good parts. Like a full reread of a favorite novel, he keeps “reading” instead of only reading an exciting part before moving to the next spot. Through this, Billy’s growth as a character becomes apparent, this being a parallel to soldiers learning to overcome PTSD, as the time traveling could be a way to escape the PTSD that comes after the moment he travels from. Billy’s ability to time travel could even be compared to the simple wish of a soldier to not experience PTSD, and Billy’s growth is comparable to learning to live with PTSD and even overcome it. Most of this is just guesswork, as I still don’t fully understand this book.

Though abrupt, the ending is nice. It being the end of the war, it is comparable to Billy overcoming his PTSD, as the only other times we see him is during the war, or when he is still struggling with it after the war. When the war is over, a big weight is lifted from his shoulders similar to being freed from PTSD. All in all, I would recommend this book for fun reading, but I would be wary of using it for analysis.

Now this section has got to be the jumpiest of all. Here is a Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 summary, as I don’t have time to get into it.

The plane crashed, by the way. Billy knew it was going to, but this is the second time I thought it was actually his end. It wasn’t, but ya know, I thought it was. I’m also not fully sure what is going on as this book is very confusing. I should have just gone to the public library and gotten “Red Dawn” or something. But here I am, I guess. I’m not really complaining, it’s just that it is so darn hard to comprehend, although when I do understand it, it’s quite interesting. I’m also wondering just how Billy survived that plane crash with little more than a fractured skull.

My idea of a spectator being the narrator has kind of fallen apart, as Billy has begun to talk more in the first person and kind of being more self-aware of himself. Instead of time traveling to only the good points in his life, he chooses to stay in some of the harder points in his life, choosing not to avoid the hardships and rather face them head-on. This really highlights Billy’s growth throughout the book, as in the beginning, he is only really on the surface, reliving moments instead of digging deep. It also shows how the Tralfamadorians’ point of view is flawed, as it is better to solve problems and grow and learn than simply accept them and allow the end (these are themes and the author’s craft, by the way).

Welcome back to Confusion Town! Where every post is as confusing or more so than the last! This one’s no different, folks, as we are once again bouncing all over the place although less so than last week.

I am actually beginning to have an inkling of why Vonnegut is telling the story in the way that he is. The use of “Listen;”, third person, and general disconnectedness is beginning to make sense to me, because of an event in Billy’s life Vonnegut includes.

The event goes as such: Billy Pilgrim (as shown by AI on the right, it would look similar to this) is giving a speech to a capacity crowd at a baseball stadium in Chicago on the true nature of time and of flying saucers. Coupled with the multiple references Vonnegut makes to himself, i.e. saying “That was me” or “I was that man,” I am beginning to comprehend his choice of structure. I believe that the story is being told as a spectator in the crowd who knew Billy personally, most likely Vonnegut himself in an alternate timeline.

Another way of looking at it would be that the story is being told through the eye of a Tralfamadorian, pictured at left, which would explain the omniscence that a mere human who knew Billy, even very closely, couldn’t begin to display. And it could also be Billy looking at his own life from death, sort of listening in on his life at different points in time.

Billy is heating things up now. It’s starting to go at a breakneck speed with all the jumps and most time stops only last a page or two. I am really interested to see where this ends.

A bigger section + Kurt Vonnegut = Tons of confusion. Chapter 5 is the longest chapter in the book, and Vonnegut does a good but kind of confusing job at tying Billy’s time jumps together, and also making them seem somewhat more random. For those interested, here is a SparkNotes summary of chapter 5, as it is too much for me to get into.

Vonnegut’s biggest theme is that of simple acceptance of things to come. Billy’s signature line is “So it goes,” that being similar to one in our own world, “It is what it is.” The Tralfamadorians, when questioned about how the universe comes to an end, simply accept that much is true, and don’t do anything to stop it, even though they easily could. These creatures are blinded by the “So it goes” mentality, and Vonnegut is warning us to not fall into the same trap through his book. Vonnegut also makes a subtle connection between the Tralfamadorians and the Nazis, and it goes like this:

Billy Pilgrim asked the Tralfamadorians why they chose to abduct him. They replied simply, stating “Why you? Why anybody?”

When the prisoners were being marched into the prison camp, one nameless soldier said something about one of the guards in english. He meant no harm by it, and neither did he know that this specific guard also knew english, and he got beat up for it. Whilst the guard was beating him up, the soldier asks “Why me?” to which the guard replies “Vy you? Vy anybody?”

I think Vonnegut’s choice in using this highlights his anti-war sentiment and the purpose for which he wrote the book. Alongside the statement by one of the aliens, in which they say, “I have studied 30 planets and read reports on 100 more, and only on Earth have I heard of free will,” it is clear that free will is what Vonnegut sees as necessary to the prevention of war. The Tralfalmadorians have never heard of it, and they have wars and are incapable of preventing their doom. The Nazis famously used propaganda to essentially lower the free will of the average citizen, and they warred until their unraveling. Vonnegut is saying, through these subtle truths, that the only way war will be ended is if everyone on the planet has free will.

Ok, after this chapter, I am really excited to see what comes up in the next chapters. This one was a doozy, but at least it only goes downhill from here.

Yeah, so he just kind of cuts in and out of time, jumping somewhat randomly. Apparently, the day he gets abducted by aliens is coincidentally the night of his daughter’s wedding, which is very odd. This whole book is odd. It’s not boring, which is nice, but goodness gracious, Billy is one heck of an odd character.

Not only this, but somehow he knows exactly when he is going to be abducted, and acts accordingly, waiting patiently on the couch watching a movie. This is where it gets even weirder, as he sees the movie in reverse first, before it goes back in forward. Then, he knows that it’s time to go, so he goes out into the backyard and gets abducted. Also, the aliens like Sears, because they stole a whole bunch of furniture from a Sears warehouse to furnish Billy’s habitat on Tralfamadore.

They anesthetize him, and the saucer’s acceleration causes him to wake up in the boxcar again. Everyone in his boxcar hates him, because he rolls around and freaks out every time he goes to sleep. Not only this, but the antitank gunner who was forced to wear the clogs dies of the infection the clogs caused. All the while, he was telling his whole boxcar, which was not the same as Billy’s, who killed him, that being, “Billy Pilgrim.” I felt as though this was kind of a dick move, as he could have just left Billy behind, but instead he just had to bring him with.

The train arrives at a prison camp, where the POWS are unloaded and given coats taken from dead people, the previous inhabitants of the camp they have arrived at. The prisoners get a shower, and Billy jumps around some more before he wakes up on the saucer again and the alien explains that Earth is the only place in the universe where free will is a thing before the chapter closes. I have always enjoyed a little sci-fi, so I am interested to see where this goes.

Welcome back to the most broken timeline ever written! This is part 2 of bouncing around and being a difficult book to follow.

After Billy gets beat up, he is captured by the Germans and brought to a stone cottage with a load of other prisoners. Those Germans, who seemed so scary before, were just some bottom-of-the-barrel troops that didn’t even have proper footwear, which I know as true because Germany was running out of resources as early as 1943, and they were even lower on resources during the Battle of the Bulge. One soldier didn’t even have shoes, just a pair of wooden clogs.

Billy closed his eyes and jumped in time to 1967, when he was an optometrist (like I said, very confusing). He is there for just a little bit, about the time of a short nap, before he is once again transported back to World War 2.

Billy and the swarm of other POWs are then marched to a railhead and loaded onto a train, with horrible and cramped living conditions. Vonnegut also shows how the prisoners were dehumanized, as the German guards are said by Vonnegut to see the train cars as little more than eating, excreting boxes.

He once again transports back to 1967, driving in his Cadillac Coupe de Ville and explores his home, kind of reminiscent of PTSD attacks or “Vietnam Flashbacks,” before the chapter ends with Billy alluding to his alien abduction. I am interested to see the next section.

Remember how Mrs. Johnson said that Arthur Miller was kind of a rambler? Well, Kurt Vonnegut is worse. The entire first chapter was just him yapping for like 20 pages. At least it was in a bigger font, I suppose.

Once we finally do get into the story, it is rather difficult to follow. The story is written from a 3rd person limited point of view, which makes it not necessarily more dificult but just different. Vonnegut says a lot in a little, and even I had to read a little slower to figure out what is going on, even if that understanding was very basic.

The story is set in and around the Second World War up to about the middle 60s, and it follows this character Billy, a man that has supposedly been abducted by aliens in the past. These aliens give him some sort of simply eye-opening knowledge, he is somehow able to time travel to different points in his life? But it also seems that he has no control over it, jumping in time rather sporadically.

Billy is (and was, the timeline of this book is wacky) a chaplain’s assistant in the United States Army, and when he gets to Europe ,he is immedatley caught in the Battle of the Bulge, not even making it to his unit. He is no soldier, as he isn’t supposed to be, because Vonnegut wrote this as an anti-war novel. After falling in with three other soldiers, it becomes abundantly clear that he isn’t a soldier, as he doesn’t have a good pair of boots or even a weapon of any kind. He and the talkitive one of the three, a anti-tank gunner, are then dumped by the other two, scouts, left to fend for themselves. Then, the anti-tank gunner gets mad at Billy for basically no reason and beats the crap out of him, before they are captured by a squad of Germans, thus ending the second chapter.

So far, this book has been interesting for me, and I think that it only goes uphill from here. I am excited to continue reading it, even if it makes my head hurt at times.

Slaughterhouse Five is a novel written by Kurt Vonnegut, loosely based on the firebombings of Dresden, Germany during World War Two. I chose it, mainly because Mrs. Jensen told me to read it, but also because it genuinely interested me. Not only the time period, but also the concept of it. I chose to read alone, mainly because I believe that it will help me to focus more on the book and not have to discuss with another.

B-17F bombers, potentially over Dresden

Giles Corey is seen to not trust Thomas Putnam at all. On page 96, he believes that Thomas Putnam is killing his neighbors for their land. This obviously sparks Giles’ distrust, worrying that Putnam might come for him next.

I think that, sadly, neither of the authors were able to persuade their audience. The main reason is simply the intended audience’s distance from the problem. In Red Cloud’s speech, he was speaking to a college in New York, when the problem area was more than a thousand miles away, in the Black Hills. In De las Casas’ monologue, it was even worse, as the problem was across an entire ocean and among people otherwise portrayed as savages. Due to this, many in both audiences could have believed that it wasn’t their problem soley because of the distance. The only real way for either of them to convince their audience would have been to have video or pictorial proof of the injustices done.