I have finished book #1 of 100, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. It is a moral victory for me. For one, I finished the first book from the list. For another, I finished a book before Jess, for possibly the only time during this entire endeavor. Granted, her book, On the Road, is much longer than mine, but who needs to know that?
I must say, my first thought when setting the book down was not a pleasant one, more of a “is that it?” After spending the last year reading Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, I was expecting every other word to be a symbol and have some higher meaning. Nothing in Vonnegut’s book is like that. It is simple, very straight forward and to the point.
After reading the first chapter, I expected the entire book to be from Vonnegut’s point of view. It wasn’t until the third chapter that I realized the first chapter was only a foreword by the author and the true beginning of the book is the second chapter.
It was a relief to read something where the main character isn’t the glorified John Wayne type hero, but instead a bumbling idiot. Billy Pilgrim is the stereotypical roont of a kid that we all beat up on in elementary school. Vonnegut makes it clear in the first chapter that his book about the bombing of Dresden is going to be an anti-war book. He holds true to that promise.
My questions are this: what aspects of the book were written to make the reader think negatively about war and which were just the retelling of events as they could have or did conceivably happen? Is it the thought of someone with the total ineptness like Billy Pilgrim being the ones on the front line and not a John Wayne type like we’re used to? Is it the fact that even after knowing the bombing of Dresden is going to occur, Billy Pilgrim still can’t wrap his head around it? Or is it both?
After sitting down to type this but before actually doing so, I went onto Facebook and saw it was Jess and my friend’s 23rd birthday. I informed Jess of this and she called her to wish her a happy birthday. Ms. Jen Wright a.k.a. Juizy Fruit a.k.a. Indy Slice is a Ball State graduate and avid reader herself. As I was preparing to leave to visit a friend of mine who was visiting Muncie, Jess handed me the phone and what ensued was a fairly enlightening conversation for me. Jen has read Slaughterhouse-Five before and lent several points to my interpretation of the novel.
One of her points is one I’ve mentioned already: Is it the fact that even after knowing the bombing of Dresden is going to occur, Billy Pilgrim still can’t wrap his head around it? Billy Pilgrim is likely the most knowledgeable Earthling given his ability to visit any point in his life. Even with this ability to spend as much time as necessary absorbing the horror of the bombing, he still can’t. This is Jen’s argument and one that I nearly agree with, but I do have one additional question: Is this a statement of the horrors of war, or can Billy Pilgrim not absorb the horror of the bombing because his ability to “travel in time” only first begin right before the bombing and thus, he hasn’t had time to fully comprehend his own ability, let alone the horror of the bombing?
I must admit, his inability to absorb the horror of the bombing is likely a more impactful message than the fact that he was there in the first place. However, for me, his placement at the front had more of an impact. I don’t know if that is because I have spent a considerable amount of time in my life studying WWII and specifically the bombing of Dresden or because of the fact that people like Billy really did end up fighting on the front and we’ve told ourselves otherwise ever since.
Slight irony I finished reading this on Memorial Day, eh?
The novel reveals a great amount about how people view themselves and the events around them. I read the Wikipedia article about Slaughterhouse-Five right after I finished reading the book and it used a term that I hadn’t thought of but fits the bill perfectly: fatalist. That is our approach as humans to almost any horrific event in our lives. We instantly think that it was meant to happen because God willed it or because we allowed it or some other crazy idea. Overall, I liked the book and appreciated its anti-war sentiment, but I highly disagree with the fatalist viewpoint it takes. Now I suspect, and so do many others, the fatalist attitude adopted in the novel is satire by Vonnegut and he too disagrees with it. It makes more sense for it to be satire because otherwise it takes away from the anti-war message. What scares me is there are actually people out there who believe everything happens for some higher reasons and accept everything that happens to them and that free-will doesn’t exist. The biggest example of this being the Holocaust with Jews believing that was their punishment for past slights against Christ. I’m sorry Jewish people, but the Holocaust was Nazi genocide, not a predetermined act by Christ. At least I hope not, because I don’t know if I would want to go to a heaven where the master would allow that. Sorry, not the point and I’ve gotten off topic.
The other telling aspect of the book, in my opinion, is the propaganda by Howard W. Campbell, Jr. about how the poor in America act, which isn’t propaganda at all; it is exactly how poor people act. We have been bred as Americans to believe in this all powerful American dream, but we can’t all reach it, we still need someone to mop the floor of our fancy office high-rises.
Overall, I believe this book deserved to be on the list. It touched on quite a few subjects that I highly agree and disagree with and did it in a non-scientific way, making it easy to follow.
My next book will be On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Jess is 12 pages away from being finished. You can expect her post later today. Also, wish her luck; she has a job interview in about five hours, hence why she is actually sleeping at 6:30 in the morning instead of finishing her book.
Anywho, here is my first “discussion” of a book from the list. I would GREATLY appreciate feedback and further discussion. Until then, good night.
- Frank
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
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All I have to say is that your reaction when you finished it was PRICELESS. I thought you were going to throw it down, pick up a cigarette, and delete this blog.
ReplyDeleteKeep it up.
it's not as much a "forward" as a meta-textual element... kind of the play-within-a-play, a layering of elements. but it's true that many of the things in their are "autobiographical." what a wonderful hoosier to start your list with.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the shout-out in your post.
ReplyDeleteI know you're still in the "what does it all mean" phase of trying to wrap your head around this book, but I want to be sure you don't forget to think about more technical things, such as style. "Slaughterhouse-Five: Or The Children's Crusade, A Duty-Dance With Death" somehow breaks every rule about good writing and follows every rule at the same time.
On the one hand, our author quite literally inserts himself into the story of Billy Pilgrim, which is itself beyond absurd. He mixes genres like nobody's business, somehow turning an anti-war novel about the illusion of free will into a sci-fi dream ... sort of. By the end, Vonnegut has broken so many conventions that it doesn't even seem as though he knew there were conventions in the first place.
On the other hand, Vonnegut follows a lot of literary rules, making the book ultimately very accessible despite its general off-the-wallness. He builds a main character whom the reader roots for even though Billy isn't exactly the perfect example of humanity at its best. He uses simple literary techniques to drive larger themes. (Example: Repetition of the phrase "So it goes" for each death — significant or tiny, malicious or accidental — pounds in the cumulative and unstoppable force of death like the ticking of a metronome.) And Frank, don't say there aren't symbols in this book. Think about the horses, the colors blue and ivory, and Montana Wildhack's locket.
And how could we forget the little bird that goes "Poo-tee-weet?" That mindless phrase appears after the massacre and at the end of the novel, a ringing symbol of pointlessness when all you can do is ask a question that has no answer.
I made an error in my previous comment that I must fix. It's "Slaughterhouse-Five, Or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death," not "Slaughterhouse-Five: Or The Children's Crusade, A Duty-Dance With Death." My bad.
ReplyDeleteStruggling Pilgrim a.k.a. Devin – You know, the thought crossed my mind for a split second. But onward I must march.
ReplyDeleteMegan – First off, props on the use of “meta-textual element” which is definitely a $10 word. If all you literary types keep commenting, which I hope you do, I’m totally going to be edumacated by the end of this experience. = )
I agree though, it is very “play-within-a-play.” I can’t think of another book I’ve read that had quite this same style. Two questions for you: Is all Vonnegut like this? Are there any other books on our list that are like this?
Jen – GAH! You and Jess both are on me about paying attention to style and whatnot. I guess I have to expect that from two people who make their living reading and writing. I’ll tell you now, style is less important to me than content and message, but I do find some importance in it. ;-P Also, Jess just informed me that Vonnegut is your favorite author, so I can tell that any argument against your points is going to result in me having my ass handed to me. Or I’ll be sliced. So it goes.
I will agree though, it did seem to break every rule of writing I have ever learned, but at the same time, I definitely wanted to sit down and start breaking them myself. As for taking an anti-war book into the sci-fi realm, who says we have to categorize ourselves into one genre or another? I only ask this because if you look up the genres listed for The Dark Tower series, you’ll find four: fantasy fiction, science fantasy, horror and western.
And I do concede there is some symbolism in the book. But if those symbols were taken out, would the overall message of the novel be unable to be found? I think not. I completely missed the fact that “So it goes” only happened after deaths. I don’t know how I missed that. The “poo-tee-weet?” did invoke a sense of mindlessness in me, but not in connection to the senselessness of war. This could be because of the three times it occurs, one is in the foreword with no connection to the bombing and right after reading it at the end, I threw the book down in confusion.
Lastly, I will admit my ignorance in connection to the horses, the colors blue and ivory and Montana Wildhack’s locket. But maybe it’s because I’m thinking too deeply.
With the horses, Billy cried when he learned the shape they were in, and it was the only time he cried during the war. Thousands had been killed in the bombing only a few days before, but it were the horses that made him cry. We value a horse’s life more than we do a human’s.
As for the serenity prayer on the locket, which also appears earlier in the book, it’s the prayer recovering alcoholics recite. I have a crocheted copy of it hanging in my attic at home. I’m not sure if this was a connection to Vonnegut’s drinking before writing this book or if it implied Billy was an alcoholic. It could also be the words themselves. It’s tells the person saying the pray to only focus on the good and forget the bad, which the Tramalafadorians did. Anywho, I’m not sure, please enlighten me.
Your comment has made me think about it, which is exactly what I was hoping would happen from this exercise. Please keep it up.
- Frank
A TON of books use meta-textual elements (the biggest being example Frankenstein, really: the "monster" being the text Shelley is creating). No, not all Vonnegut is like this, but his other stuff is definitely worth reading. This will be your most obvious use of "meta," but you'll find the idea and elements of it in Woolf and Cather. It's one of the most largely used devices, so you'll run into it a lot :)
ReplyDelete