1984
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!! Here's the place to discuss Orwell's dystopia...how close was he? Can you see this as a future?
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Blog #1: 12/16
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posted by Ms. Clapp @ 9:48 AM
19 comments
19 Comments:
Not 1984. Slaughterhouse five.
The first chapter was kind of confusing. Would anyone like to explain what happened? It seemed like that chapter didn't really need to be there. And for clarification, this is a story within a story, yes?
The second chapter was more interesting. It's like Vonnegut heard some story about someone getting kidnapped by aliens and decided to make some hypothetical story about it. About the time skip thing. Was he transported to another time and he was the Billy from that time? Or was he some sort of ghostly observer?
The history part of World War II annoyed me. I want fantasy! Anyone want to comment on the title. It seems very misleading.
Chloe, I agree with you that the first chapter is kind of confusing because it seems out of place in relation to the next chapter. I guess that the first Chapter is more of like a pre-face but it's part of the book itself. Interesting. It's also in Kurt Vonnegut's voice so the book might be somewhat autobiographical, embedding himself into Billy.
So yes, it's a story within a story (kind of).
From what I read and understood, he was transported to another time as himself and not a ghostly observer because on page 43, he says that "he was a little boy taking a shower with his hairy father at Ilium YMCA. He smelled chlorine from the swimming pool next door" (page 43). It sounds like he is there as himself at that moment. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I think the fantasy part of this book is his ability to travel through time. No dragons or princesses, maybe next book.
Yeah, the title seems out of place but we're only two chapters in so it might be clearer as to why it is called Slaughterhouse Five later in the book.
Having just finished One Hundred Years of Solitude, I find that this book is also about time being in a circle and not linear, that everything exists at once. I got that from the line:
"when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past" (page 26). There's also the idea that Billy can be at different time frames. What do you guys think?
Also, any comments on the "so it goes" that is repeated numerously through the chapters?
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Like Chloe, I was also confused from the shift between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. However, as Ngoc suggested about Chapter 1 being a preface to Chapter 2 (and rest of the book), it makes sense. In Chapter 1, Vonnegut gives a brief overview of the “story” he will be creating. Instead of a prologue or the usual introduction, I think that Vonnegut chose to lend his voice in the first chapter to emphasize his role in the war (as what Ngoc said about being Vonnegut’s autobiography).
We’ve only read two chapters, but in some way, I agree with Ngoc about time traveling being the “fantasy” of the book. On page 49-50, “Billy Pilgrim went on skating, doing tricks…Weary was about to beat the living shit out of him.” Billy isn’t able to control his time traveling to which time or place he wants to go. However, this unpredictable supernatural force makes Billy’s adventures believable in its “fantasy sense”.
As I kept reading, I was also wondering about the “so it goes”. After reading Chapter 2, I went back to the many “so it goes” and I realized the phrase is usually mentioned about something bad or death related: the destruction of the city and its people (21), the woman named Lot being turned into salt? (22), Billy’s wife dies (25), how Tralfamadorian sees the dead as (27), the spikes and blood (36)…there are many more, but these are some of the examples. I felt that Vonnegut is letting us know that death is simply death. There’s nothing else you can do and so we have to leave it be, thus the “so it goes” because deaths will continue to occur throughout this book (war!).
Does anyone understand about the “creatures” called Tralfamadorians that I believed Billy created? At first, I thought the idea of these creatures were randomly made up because Billy became insane after a plane crash. Then later on pages 26-27, Billy mentions about the logic of the Tralfamadorian’s interpretation of death. Any comments?
I thought Billy’s portrayal in the war was unusual: “empty-handed, bleakly ready for death…no helmet, no overcoat, no weapon, and no boots…He didn’t look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo.” (32-33). Billy is no hero, that’s for sure. Yet, unlike the other prepared and strong soldiers, Billy survives the war without supplies. I thought Billy’s “fortunate luck” was due to his lack of fear for death. He was “ready for death” (32), but apparently, fate does not kill him off. Instead, he’s given this special ability to time travel. Ngoc mentions about time being in a circle, and I think that in time, like Aureliano in One Hundred Years of Solitude, Billy will know the precise time and place of his death.
Well, when Billy started mentioning the Tralfamadores, I sort of just accepted their existence and I’m pretty much believing everything the narrator is saying, since this is fiction. Because these guys can see in the fourth dimension—time—they usually say “so it goes” when it comes to someone’s death (which is why Helen noticed it so many times after deaths). The phrase itself makes death not seem as big a deal as we normally make it out to be since the Tralfamadores can simply go to a time when someone isn’t dead. Now Billy can do it, why or how I’m not sure yet.
Also, something Helen reminded me of about wars was at the top of the fourth page; “And even if wars didn’t keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.” After reading this I figured Vonnegut was saying something about the nature of humans, that no matter how much we try we will always kill. If this becomes some sort of theme I think it would complement the title very nicely.
As for the first chapter, the last four lines say:
“Listen:
Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
It ends like this:
Poo-tee-weet?”
So if you look at the first two lines of chapter two, we begin the narrator’s book, so I’m guessing that Slaughterhouse-Five must end in “Poo-tee-weet?” (no, I don’t want to look to see if it does). Because of this I get a similar feeling to that of One Hundred Years; that Billy jumps around in his life the way One Hundred Years jumped around throughout the book. So far the ideas of time for both books seem similar, and in a way, we as the readers are (or at least can be) reading this book in the fourth dimension because we can turn to any page and be in that moment.
I noticed his lack of control in the time lapses as well but it also seemed like he didn’t have much control when he was in a new time either. For example, when he suddenly spoke in public (as far as I understood) the words came out of him almost magically, and his explanation was that he had taken public speaking courses. Did I miss something or does he actually only relive (or preview) his life without any control?
Also, is the narrator Billy?
I agree with Chloe in regards to the first chapter being confusing...it took me a while to get used to the writing. Vonnegut is basically telling us what the rest of the novel will be like every time he is discussing this novel he plans to write. Vonnegut sort of makes himself a character in his own story, and it almost seems like this was one of those things like in Star Wars where the preceding events were written after the later events had already been told.
What the heck was going on in chapter two?? This guy Billy is nuts. He is a time traveller...but not a tangible one? He doesn't describe his experiences from a first hand point of view; it seems like he is watching himself every time he travels. Also, will the Trafaldadorians (aliens) be a recurring thing throughout the book? I'm not really sure what to expect of the book so far. We just finished One Hundred Years Of Solitude, which was hard to track in itself, but now we have this one, yet another labyrinth. I suppose it has been good so far, and I also hope some things are clarified in the coming chapters.
I’m lost in time: this is basically how I was feeling when reading through Chapters 3 to 5. Billy is able to time travel through different time frames must faster this time. Thus, it’s sometimes confusing to keep track of what is the present, past, and future. So far, I believe there is the early past [the war, the prison camps], the past [Billy at the hospital (99-104), daughter’s wedding (72), his job place (56), etc], the present (131-132), and the future [Billy as a zoo display in the alien world (111)].
As Ngoc mentioned, she said that time is moving in a circle and that everything exists at once. I think that Billy’s continuous time travels give us more evidence on the time concept. After reading this on page 88, “There is no beginning, no middle, no end…What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time,” I thought maybe Billy’s present, past, and future are all linked into that one moment in time. I don’t think I even remember when Billy first started to time travel. Do you guys remember that moment?
Somehow, something Armir said about Billy reliving or previewing his life reminded me the text on pages 85-86—when the aliens believed that time is simply time: time is that certain moment. Therefore, there is no change. Looking back when Billy time travels to a different scenario throughout his lifetime, I realized that Billy isn’t surprised of what’s going on. Billy actually ‘knows” what he is doing (like when he checks a patient’s eyes on page 56). He also knew that he was going to be captured by aliens (75) and I thought it was weird how Billy didn’t even try to run. He waited and allowed the aliens to capture him. Also, when Billy time travels, he doesn’t go through any disorder or dizzy affects. Billy is able to smoothly go from one time frame to another without any problems. Apparently, each time he time travels is when Billy closes his eyes, sleep (131), or when he is doing something that’s similar to what he’s doing in both time frames (an example would be on page 126 when he’s using the bathroom).
In some of the time travels, I thought that I saw some repetitions such as the “orange and black stripes” which refers to the war prisoners colors (69) and the colors of the wedding tent (72). I thought that maybe these colors represent as a symbol when Billy time travels from one time frame to another. Somehow, some things of one particular time frame is able to conjure up in another time frame, but in a different appearance. There is also the part when Billy states that he’s forty-four years a lot (as if he’s been forty-four years forever, and time isn’t changing).
Besides from the time complexity, I thought that the Tralfamodorians (these aliens have a long name!) were funny creatures now that we are able to learn more about them in these chapters. Apparently, these aliens are real! Out of all the “Earthlings”, the aliens pick Billy (76-77) and eventually a movie star (132) for their zoo where both Billy and the movie star are both stark naked. These aliens blow up universes in order for them to experiment on their saucers (which I think also mean UFOs). They ignore wars (the bad) so they focus on happy things such as going to a zoo to see naked humans doing human activities (116). The portrayal of these aliens somehow gives me an intellect and humorous perception. I mean, the aliens are weird, but they often say logical things such as the time concept and their stories.
I’m not sure, but referring back to Chloe’s question about the title of the book, I thought that the first part of the title means something related to war. On page 116, Billy talks about the ‘senseless slaughter (war) since the beginning of time.’ Vonnegut did explain in the beginning of the book he was going to write a book based on war.
One last thing: Why were the Englishmen at the prison camps? At first, I thought they were prisoners and maybe they are, but the Germans treated them so nicely—giving the Englishmen four cabins and supplies. Anyone want to comment on this?
I’ll start with the Englishmen that Helen was wondering about. I’m doing a terrible job keeping track of page numbers but I remember that the Englishmen behaved the way Germans would imagine prisoners to act like (the way we might expect people to behave in certain situations because we’ve seen it in movies). The Englishmen are brotherly and cheerful and even make the Germans forget about the nastiness of war, whereas the Americans are sulky and depressed. These Germans don’t really seem to want to fight unless it’s necessary and sort of play along with the war. To put it simply, the Englishmen are the life of the party and the Americans are the whiners and sulkers who ruin it, but they both are still prisoners.
Anyway, one of the funniest pictures in my head came from these lines: “But sleep would not come. Tears came instead. They seeped. Billy turned on the Magic Fingers, and he was jiggled as he wept” (62). He seems to cry for no apparent reason, but then he time travels back to the war where he’s marching in the cold, which makes his eyes tear up. This makes me think that the two moments are getting intertwined together as if they were happening at the same time because they are, in fact, one simultaneous moment… according to the Tralfamadorians anyway.
Also, there was this weird bit about Adam and Eve in one of the soldier’s boots which I didn’t get at all. But I’m sure it must have something to do with Billy and Montana being trapped in this weird Earth-like environment (Eden) on Tralfamadore and them being naked.
So far I like the book. Some of the themes are similar to that of One Hundred Years. What I’m getting as a possible message or purpose of the book so far is basically: stop asking “why me?” about situations that you can’t control and try to make the best of them (well, that's what I get out of the prison scenes anyway. It makes sense with him getting trapped in Tralfamadore too). This is most likely not the main purpose though. What do you guys think Vonnegut is trying to say so far? We might need to read the whole book to really answer this.
Armir, I found the passage about the British prisoners: “They were adored by the Germans, who thought they were what exactly what Englishmen ought to be. They made war look stylish and reasonable, and fun. So the Germans let them have four sheds, though one shed would have held them all” (94).
I find this book, like everyone else, is similar to One Hundred Years of Solitude. There’s the bit about Adam and Eve and how “everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve” (75). The line reminds me of Ursula from One Hundred Years of Solitude how in the end how she returned to a baby as she neared her death. This leads to Armir’s question: What do you guys think Vonnegut is trying to say so far?
So far, Vonnegut is trying to say that fate is inescapable. This can be seen in the repetitive use of “so it goes” throughout the book. Billy has seen many deaths and with his ability to time travel, he knows when they die and expect them to, he doesn’t question it. One interesting quote I found is “only on Earth is there any talk of free will” (86). The Tralfamadorians can see the 4th dimension which means they can see time which means they can see the past, future, and present. They know what’s going to happen, everything is predetermined so they don’t really have “free will.” Like Armir said, “you can’t control” what’s going to happen to you because it’s already been fated to happen that way. All this talk about having our own destinies and we can shape it however we can is bogus, Vonnegut seems to say.
From what I can tell, the book is fairly linear within their own time span. It tells events from one time period to the the next, but when they come back, it's next in chronology. That is to say, Vonnegut made it somewhat structured to make in easier to follow. There is some fuzziness on some of the transitions, but we can make out blocks of the story at a time.
I liked the part about the Tralfamodorians more than any other section. Billy's like just isn't all that interesting. I like the alien part of it because it is a completely different way of looking at time and space. All of time exists at once, which is why we look like shrinking millipedes (smaller in the front for your childhood). Their conscienceness floats around and never really dies. They could stay and replay one moment of time if they wanted to. I like this fantasy part of the novel since it's like nothing we've ever seen. The time skipping thing is nothing specials- there have been dozens of works that have a similar premise.
My second most favorite block is the experiences with his wife Valencia Merble. It's like he already resigned himself to unhappiness. He's not even looking for that free will (mentioned in the end of chapter 4) anymore.
This novel shows the inevitability of fate. It is unchangable, which explains why he's so calm about the extraordinary experience. He was even ready to be captured by aliens and ready to be returned after a few seconds Earth time.
And about that question "Why me?", isn't that question conceited? There's nothing particularly special about Billy that let him get chosen. Don't assume you're special- it was just your bad luck.
I have a theory. I think that the Tralfamodorians action of taking him to their world made him unstuck in time. And since you can't be suddenly unstuck in time, and using alien logic, you exist at all times of your life, Billy must have become unstuck in his past too. Comments?
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Hey guys.
I'm really starting to feel a little sorry for Billy because it aost seems like he has no chance at all to control what he is doing. He keeps jumping back and forth in time, and everything that he has done was completely out of his hands, especially being a POW. Billy is locked into his fate; any resistance to this notion is futile. Billy’s question “Why me?” reveals the limits of human consciousness; the Tralfamadorians would never think to ask such a question, since they know that the structure of time is beyond anyone’s control. What is important, then, is how one interprets the events in one’s life, which certainly changes for Billy after he returns from the war.
Billy is also startig to come across as something of a maniac. This new philosophy on life that he has, the one of the Trafamaldorians, seems to comfort Billy but also make it seem like the world is a safe place. Billy is unaware that danger still exists, especially if nobody is taking responsibility for their actions. Billy’s desire to share his story with the public, however, is a matter of personal will. Ironically, Billy concertedly exercises his free will in order to teach others that free will is futile.
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So now we know why it’s called Slaughterhouse-Five, because it was where Billy was held in Dresden as a prisoner of war of the Germans. It’s obvious that the book is anti-war. Like that narrator has mentioned in Chapter 1, the climax is the firebombing of Dresden, so it’s appropriate that it was named after that.
I find it funny how Billy went on and on about how bad the earth is because of the constant war and then the Tralfamadorians inform him that it is them that will destroy the universe because they were testing fuel for their saucers. Oh, the irony. I know that the book is anti-war but this part seems to say something else. It seems as though Kurt Vonnegut is saying that war is bad (duh) but it’s not bad enough to destroy the universe.
I feel bad for his wife, Valencia. She died of carbon monoxide on her visit to see Billy at the hospital. We already know that she would die at the beginning of the book but still. However, there was no emotional response to it from his side. He only married her for money, how sad, poor woman. On top of that, the engagement ring is something he found in a coat that made him look like a fool.
To me, the Tralfamadorians are like those little cliché sayings that you hear. One of which always come back (roughly summarizing it): Everything is meant to be.
Okay, so we are at the end of the book. What is Kurt Vonnegut trying to say? Do you believe in the legitimacy of Billy’s stories about the Tralfamadorians and his time traveling? Or it is all just a dream for him? Also, when he went to the book store in New York, it is revealed that his stories are similar to that of Kilgore Trout.
However, putting that aside.
The phrase “so it goes,” as observed by Helen, happens after each death. The simplicity and carelessness of the phrase implies that deaths happened in this book are unjust but he cannot do anything about it even if he knew that is was going to happen (like his own death). It does back to the idea of fate and how it is how it is. Inescapable. More than that, Mr. Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five to suggest that all moments, happiness or utter desolation, co-exist in our memory; though we don’t have to access to it as much as we like since some memories are murkier than others. And that sometimes, seeing it as a memory would cause a deeper understanding of the event. For example, during the actual firebombing of Dresden, Billy had no emotional attachment to it except it just happened. However, at his 18th wedding anniversary, the song brought back that memory and he finally felt what he should have felt back then.
So, over all, thumbs up or down? I'd give a so-so.
Back to Ngoc’s question about the Tralfamadorians, I don’t think the aliens actually exist, but they are a great influence in Billy’s mind. I think that Trout and Billy’s stories are similar because they are same. The aliens had taught Billy that he should always live in the happy moments (194-195), which is quite ironic because how can anyone be truly happy when there’s still wars going on? So even though the Tralfamadorians’ philosophy of peace is nice, we cannot ignore wars. As Ngoc mentioned, “so it goes” implies that death is unjust.
At the beginning, I concentrated more on Billy’s eccentric behavior as a soldier. He’s no soldier nor is he a family type person. I finally realized how distance he is from his wife, daughter, and son. On page 176, Billy realizes he really doesn’t know much about his seventeen-year-old son. Their moment together was quite awkward. Then on page 183, Valencia dies and Billy knew nothing about it. Ngoc suggests that Billy married his wife only for money. I disagreed. I thought that Billy married Valencia because it was a safe option. Billy doesn’t seem to display strong emotions. When he thinks of death, Billy believes it’s fate. Therefore, no one should fear death. Death is going to happen no matter what. And that why…”so it goes”.
I thought it interesting how the last chapter goes back to Vonnegut’s narration in the first couple of pages of the chapter. He disagrees about the Tralfamadorians’ idea of eternity.
Time cannot last forever. Thus, you can’t always have happy moments since moments referred back in memories. There are both good and bad memories. Basically, Vonnegut is trying to say that deaths and wars can’t be disregarded. Even if we want to stay in our own peaceful corner.
The book was overall okay. There were some intriguing points.
I agree with Ngoc that this book has a pretty clear stance on war; that it is bad. However, I also think Vonnegut is saying that war and violence is simply part of the nature of humans. Trying to sop war from happening is silly because there will still be people killing and being killed. I thought this is what the book would be about from a quote on page 4 where the narrator is still speaking: “And even if wars didn’t keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.” So I agree with Helen’s idea of what “So it goes” means. All the deaths are meant to happen and supposedly no one can do a thing about them, so the phrase shows Billy’s lack of control over the deaths.
I found it interesting that Montana Wildhack could tell when Billy was time traveling. But according to the Tralfamadores, it isn’t really time traveling, it’s one moment. So I wonder what Vonnegut could be saying about the Tralfamadores by having Billy and Montana call it time traveling. In these last chapters, I started thinking that the Tralfamadores were a part of Billy’s imagination rather than a reality and the only reason he has Montana there with him is because he knows she goes missing at one point (basically, I thought he was crazy but still able to make sense of things). I also thought this because like what Helen said, a lot of Billy’s stories were really similar to Kilgore’s books.
I also feel that Vonnegut is saying something about self-control. Billy always time-traveled, but he could never control where and sometimes it seemed like he couldn’t even control what he did. I always got the feeling that Billy was sort of watching himself do what he was doing as it happened when he time traveled (Like the first time he traveled into the future and words were coming out of his mouth even though he thought he was terrified of giving speeches).
I enjoyed the book, the time traveling made it seem very eventful but there was nothing that really blew me away. Even the narrator admitted that the book has almost “no characters and almost no dramatic confrontations…” (164).
I found this odd. Billy seems to blank out when he’s traveling back and forth in time. Both the Harvard professor and the movie star noticed it. I thought his story/life would continue even when it’s not there. I got the feeling he blanks out in the current timeline whenever he switches time, just for a bit.
I feel the phrase “unstuck in time” was a tad inaccurate. In the beginning, he was truly unstuck and swayed where-ever the time stream took him. But near the end of the book, Billy seemed like he could control whether he could fly through time or not. He just closed his eyes while he was in the hospital and he was able to travel.
The ambiguity of if he traveled in time annoyed me. Vonnegut ruined it for me by bringing in Trout. Is Billy dreaming, hallucination, in a coma, or something else? I want this to be more fantasy. That means time travel and aliens must be real.
I’m sure you all noticed, but the end was as predicted, just like the theme of the book. And maybe you didn’t notice, but the locket has the same message as the poster in Billy’s office (p. 60).
Message time: You can’t change time. Everything that will happen, will. So it’s useless to go against it.
End note- I really liked the metaphor the Tralfamadorians used. Looking through a tiny peephole while strapped to a roller coaster. Makes total sense in their context.
I thought the book was ok. Needed more fantasy. I reiterate- I don’t like the World War 2 stuff like Dresden.
I believe that the book was not too bad overall, but the message that Vonnegut was trying to convey to his readers was not one that we haven't heard before. I like how Armir put it in his comment above mine, he pretty much got it spot on. I was a little interested in the whole deal with "So it goes." The saying seemed way too casual and laid back for me, esecially consideing that it was mentioned every time that a character died. Eventually, though, it did become clear that Vonnegut was just saying that this is the way that things naturally go, and that people will actually do, regardless of other people's actions. Also, the message in the poster and locket, as Chloe posted above, sort of ruined some of the book for me. As Chloe said, I had questions on whether or not he actually time traveled, and if this is a fantasy, there mustn't be any question.
I'd give the book a 6.5/10.
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