So It Goes

The Boston Globe has titled Slaughterhouse-Five “Poignant and hilarious, threaded with compassion.” At first glance I wondered how a book about war could end up being “hilarious.” Then I realized: A hilarious book about a war was only if the first irony of those many more to come within its pages. Coming close to the end of the novel, many themes have come up, and more than once they were in midst of ironies. Chapter 9 is no exception, for it is full of both contradictory and hilarious scenes. To point out an example, one can go back to the scene at the end of the bombing in Dresden were Americans are reprehended for the bad conditions of their horses. The couple that appear so furiously in defense of an animal were described as follows: “They were doctors, both obstetricians. They had been delivering babies until the hospitals were all burned down… this couple, so involved with babies, had never reproduced themselves, though they could have. This was an interesting comment on the whole idea of reproduction (Slaughterhouse-Five, p. 196).” Vonnegut not only implies irony in a humorous attempt when writing this, he even points it out at the end and calls it “interesting.” And why would this scene be important if we were to discard the irony and humor it contains? He answer would be something like: No, it’s not important without such concepts. Based on the previous scene and many others included in the book, one can conclude the importance of humor for the story: making a novel about war so enjoyable and allowing the reader to focus into different topics without being prevented towards a bias concept of a war.

The first example was very basic, to the point that the author even points it out for us to grasp its humor, but not all other ironies are so. Again in chapter 9, one of the greatest ironies in the novel appears: the death of Billy’s wife. The whole scene was explained as follows: “Valencia, having heard about the crash, was riding to Ilium to the hospital… Valencia adored Billy… she put her car in gear and crossed the median divider, leaving her exhaust system behind… A doctor and a nurse ran out to find out what the trouble was. Poor Valencia was unconscious, overcome by carbon monoxide. She was heavenly azure. One hour later she was dead. So it goes. (Slaughterhouse-Five, p.182-30.” This was, to my view, the greatest irony of all. Billy’s wife, who he didn’t love, heard about his crash. Then she desperately tried to get to Billy, who she “adored.”In the way she had a crash, but even so she continued her journey to see how Billy was doing. She arrived to the hospital door just in time, poisoned with carbon monoxide. She was dead at the door to visit Billy, who didn’t very much love her. “So it goes.” As if this wasn’t enough, we then find out Billy couldn’t attend the funeral he provoked, but he shows no sign of misery or sadness at his loss. It is all a big package full of ironies. One irony leads the way to the next and so on, making the story hilarious and contradictory.

Kurt Vonnegut has mastered the ability to narrate a war novel in a humorous way as depicted in his narration. Everything he said has some intention, or maybe more than one. The whole structure of the story is set out ironically. It is through irony that the reader can come to truly interpret and make sense of the words in hose pages. Great job Kurt, its all clear now… isn’t it?

Living A Trauma

Billy suffers a very interesting trauma on chapter eight of Slaughterhouse-Five, making a mental connection to his human side, even if he seems completely fictional sometimes. It happens in his anniversary, when he had a big celebration going on and the time came to give his wife a ring he had for her as a present. When the optometrist began singing in, Kurt describes Billy’s reaction as follows: “and then a chord that was suffocatingly sweet, and then some sour ones again. Billy had powerful psychosomatic responses to the changing chords. His mouth filled with the taste of lemonade, and his face became grotesque, as though he really where being stretched on the torture engine called the rack (Slaughterhouse-Five, p. 173).” Billy was having a physical reaction to music: a negative one. It is very interesting to encounter this scene only a month or so after my reading of A Clockwork Orange, for the main character of the previous has a very similar trauma, and music is also one of the triggering factors. This scene is extremely similar to the scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex lies locked up in his room and is woken up by music from a room near-by: “I slooshied for two seconds in like interest and joy, but then it all came over me, the start of the pain and the sickness, and I began to groan deep down my keeshkas. And there I was, me who had loved music so much, crawling off the bed and going oh oh oh to myself (A Clockwork Orange, p.187).” Both characters have a strong response to music, as a factor that triggers an unpleasant memory in the past. It makes them both so human and vulnerable even with all their mystery. The contexts are different, but if you take a look at the look of these traumas you find certain similarities. Alex had a whole part of his life imposed to a treatment repeated over and over again causing the trauma. On his side, Billy had experienced a war which had marked his life many times, because not only had he lived it once, but we know how he travels in time to parts of the war, reinforcing the initial trauma. The objective of trauma in both novels is to show misery in human life, to show how crude and evil living has become. Both authors make us wonder if life is really that great, they make us think about what may be the reality behind living, about how life may not be worth living after all. I already know how Alex and his story ends, now let’s find out how it all settles out for Billy Pilgrim.

Hilarious Misery

Reading Slaughterhouse-five enveloped me in a novel full of humor and mystery where the way Vonnegut manages his narration of the plot keeps my mind busy, but we must not forget the real context of the story. It all revolves around a bloody and inhuman war, even if the story makes it seem funny and exiting. The interpretation of war is greatly bent to fit the objective of the narration, but there are hints reminding us of the real context, so as to show how it is being manipulated. IN the final section of chapter seven, Billy walks us through his experience as a war prisoner working in Dresden like this: “There were spoons hidden all over the factory, on rafters, in drawers, behind radiators, and so on. They had been hidden in haste by persons who had been spooning syrup, who had heard someone else coming. Spooning was a crime (Vonnegut, p. 160).” With this, Kurt is reminding us of the real context, for after all they were not only in a war, they were the prisoners of the previous. They had to work to produce something they so much desired, and survived by stealing it in secrecy. With humor included and all, it is clear that Billy’s situation wasn’t anyhow easy or enjoyable. It is important to understand that there was also great suffering as in Greek tragic comedies. Right after the situation previously discussed, Vonnegut explains the detail of spooning as such: “”So Billy made a lollipop for him. He opened the window. He stuck the lollipop into poor old Derby’s gaping mouth. A moment passed, and then Derby burst into tears. Billy closed the window and hid the sticky spoon. Somebody was coming (Vonnegut, p.161).” Most important, it shows solidarity between the Americans in a war as the only opportunity for survival, but it also sows misery and desperation. Derby cried as he sucked on the honey, probably because it triggered all those memories of life, of how he used to live, of all those wonders in life which he had taken for granted: as honey. It may be a “hilarious” book as stated by the review on the cover, but it is also a story of war and misery, of death and loss. Don’t forget the context, for if you do, you’ll forget to grasp the meaning. And now I wonder, is that what is to be found so hilarious? Is it the fact that we laugh at the story of a prisoner of war?

Gotcha!

Reading through chapter six of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five I came across a very compromising passage which will help us understand the narration of the novel. It is right when Billy Pilgrim arrives to Dresden as a war prisoner, most precisely, when he crawled out of the boxcar. “Someone behind him in the boxcar said, “Oz.” That was I. That was me. The only other city I’d ever seen was Indianapolis, Indiana” (Slaughterhouse-Five, p.148). I rushed through the words once and halted. Then I wondered who “That was I. That was me.” was referring to. I read Indianapolis, which seemed completely out of context at first glance. But wait a minute, that doesn’t make sense. I have learned, through much misinterpretation, that no word is ever employed randomly: they all have a specific purpose. I decided to Google Kurt Vonnegut and find out about his hometown. Of course, it happened to be Indianapolis, Indiana. There is no doubt in my mind that one of the characters in the story, and a part time narrator of the novel, is Kurt Vonnegut himself. And that’s not where our thinking should end, for if we go back to the context we clearly identify two facts. First, we can tell the present excerpt is being narrated as a third person: “And then they saw Billy Pilgrim in his blue toga and silver shoes, with his hands in a muff” (Slaughterhouse-Five, p.149). That complements our hypothesis that Vonnegut narrates as third person, and shares the narration with Billy’s first person. Second, we find concrete proof linking novel and author. To clarify, we have found that Billy and Vonnegut manage some sort of parallelism. They are both at Dresden at the same time, making distinction between them as individuals. Thus far, we have come to understand the narration in hands of two different individuals under similar points of view. One carries out the narrative in third person and the other, far more personal and familiar, has in his hands our understanding as a first person narrator.

Many vs. Lots

In his blog, David crystal sparks doubt concerning the correct usage of many vs. lots or a lot. To avoid running into conclusions, I wrote myself a few examples using the same sentences or phrases but changing many for lots. To my surprise, I found that I inferred completely different things right away. To set an example, I wrote down "I have many fish" right besides "I have lots of fish". As I read the first one I had a mental image of an aquarium with a variety of different species of fish. In the later, I visualized a fisherman on a boat selling loads of salmon. In effect, I concluded that they are both correct in their own, but it drastically depends on the intentions of the words imprinted. They trigger specific reactions, and so therefore should be used as support for different intentions. One does not necessarily replace the other.

The Fourth Dimension

Kurt Vonnegut mentions his four dimensions constantly as a connection to science fiction and his Trafalmadorians. The mixture of science fiction interrelated with the historical aspects of this novel blend to produce a very unique color. As said Kilgore Trout in the novel, “People who’s mental diseases couldn’t be treated because the causes of the diseases where all in the fourth dimension” (Vonnegut, p.104). In his including of these ideas, Vonnegut is probably tying to get us to open our minds, to explore other dimensions which we have been brought up to believe where impossible. He is challenging our superiority as a species, throwing doubt into that which we thought we had completely mastered. We are questioned further in chapter five of Slaughterhouse-five: “Real night came to the zoo for only one earthling hour out of every sixty-two” (Vonnegut, p.133). Again, the concept of time is questioned. All our minds are set up to work on chronological order and to associate every learning experience to time. But we have never stopped to think that time as it is called may be another variable in the equation. That which we so much depend our existence on may be as weak and variable as posed. I think the novel is inviting us to open our minds to the dimensions of possibilities. I expect to be amazed by many ideas which may not sound logical but deserve their analytical interpretation. I will not believe everything told easily, but as an educated thinker, I will give it a chance to prove.

Billy Pilgrim

After coming across “Billy Pilgrim” for what seems to be the hundredth time I decided to give it the importance it may be calling for. So anyways, what’s a pilgrim?

According to English Collins Dictionary and English Definition and Thesaurus, a pilgrim is: 1. a person who undertakes a journey to a sacred place as an act of religious devotion. 2. Any wayfarer.

Based on these basic definitions we can begin to infer the purpose. Even though the room for religious interpretation exists (as will in any text), I think it is safe to say this isn’t a religious text. Even if I’m only three chapters into the book, I have found it aims more towards a social ambit, and not so much as shooting for religious convictions. This said, it is only suitable to manipulate the first definition towards my point. You may freak out over an erroneous usage of a definition, and if so, you are free to leave. Carrying on, the second definition comes in handy right now. Lest go ahead and forget the words sacred, religious and devotion as if we were stupid enough to read definitions without noticing words. Now our definition is something like: A person who undertakes a journey to a place and acts as a wayfarer for such.

The text insists on Billy as a pilgrim, or as the wayfarer. Now it is important to define his journey, and the cause of his pilgrimage. “Among the things Billy the pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future” (Vonnegut, p.60). By mentioning change the author may hint for several ideas. You can only really change something you understand, for if you don’t the way to change is not a product of your will. Our pilgrim now begins to fit in, for he is beginning to comprehend it, he is investigating the past, present, and future in a hope to decipher time. It is certainly a journey through time in every way. Billy goes ahead of himself and falls back from the world every so often in his present. That explains why he is a wayfarer: he is exploring and living the concept of time contrary to any experience. We, readers, are being witness of that journey in a hope to make the change, for we must all first understand. With a new and clear vision of where the plot is heading, we can give sense to our interpretations later to understand what the author really means. We may not be the pilgrims in the story, but without public there is no book. Don’t mistake your importance as a reader. Quit being a passive reader, go ahead and question.