Jess Book #2: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

So, Frank beat me to the end of another novel. In my defense, he spent hours reading while I slept.

Let me first say, the structuring of these responses is difficult for me. I'm not a particularly linear thinker, just as Slaughterhouse-Five is not a particularly linear novel. I find myself struggling to find a form to present these responses in, so that they'll make sense to any readers. But I'm very much an extrovert in the Myers-Briggs sense. I feed off of others and develop my ideas verbally and collectively, cooperatively. It's quite the challenge to put together an initial response without prior discussion or ability to fully develop my ideas by bouncing them off of others. But I suppose we didn't expect this adventure to be easy. I guess this is my attempt to justify what might follow as a shoddy attempt to describe what I find great about Slaughterhouse-Five. My apologies in advance.



Listen.
Billy Pilgrim is our antihero and a caricature of what was the American fighting force at the end of World War II. But, much more than that, he is the key to a lesson on humanity's perception of free will. Although the novel is an anti-war statement, a much bigger message exists within it.

The idea that we can control the world through war, through prayer, through enumerable other things is silly. Death is an inevitability. So it goes. Some things you must accept. Though I think there's a very developed idea of the absence of free will, I don't think Vonnegut fully believed in its nonexistence. It's about moderation. Some things are within our control, others are not. "Free will" has little to do with it. I think Vonnegut's use of the serenity prayer succeeds in capturing this.

After reading On the Road, Vonnegut's style and manipulation of time was very well received. By jumping us through Billy Pilgrim's life in an erratic (though, I'm sure, very well thought out on the part of Vonnegut) path, the reader is able to absorb the most important details and scenes of Pilgrim's life without being bogged down by the unnecessary details of life. 

Vonnegut uses repetition and the culmination of those refrains beautifully. The use of blue and ivory is used to make us think of death or impending death and culminates in the woebegone horses, which signify Billy Pilgrim's end of war. Another, the phrase "nestled like spoons," is used to describe Pilgrim and his wife and the men in the boxcars. It's wonderfully pontificated when the Americans march past Wild Bob, as he lies dead and alone, nestling nothing but the air like a spoon.

I find myself struggling to wrap my head around the importance of Vonnegut's appearances throughout the book. My best guess is that it serves to ground the reader in the reality of the situation, to remind us these visions of war really did happen. And even when Vonnegut's not overtly saying, "that was me," he finds small ways to weave himself in, particularly through the motif of the "smell of mustard gas and roses."

Another question: why do the Tralfamadorians keep Montana Wildhack closed off from their world, but allow Billy Pilgrim to experience and ponder their being?

A captivating little detail I found interesting was that Pilgrim's doctors at the mental hospital not long after the war believed that he was having issues not because of his military experiences, but because his father threw him in a pool to teach him to swim.

Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt. Vonnegut writes that this would make a good epitaph for both Billy Pilgrim and himself. If you live as the Tralfamadorians do, this can be true. Focus your energy on remembering the good and forget the bad. This can be a great life strategy, but can also prove to be a fatal error. We're taught  we should focus on the positives, make the best out of life. But we're also taught  lessons that go unlearned cause history to repeat itself. So where is the middle? How do we grasp the knowledge from our transgressions, but still focus on the good? The serenity prayer again comes to mind.

As you might notice, Frank and I will likely have very different initial feedback on the books we're reading. I'm by no means skilled or trained in literary criticism, but have more experience and knowledge of the tools than Frank does. In return, he has a much better ability to culturally and personally relate to novels than I do. I'm hoping these two approaches will help the two of us more fully understand and experience the books we read. And that our readers' feedback will continue our exploration.

I guess it's time to pick the next set of books. I look forward to your responses!

j