I was very confused while and after reading the first chapter of
Slaughterhouse-Five, it seemed to be written from Vonnegut’s perspective, but it was not a preface or introduction. I wondered, will the whole story be from his point of view? I thought this was a novel, not an autobiography. Although I understood that the first chapter is written from Vonnegut’s real life perspective after doing a quick Google Search for background of the story’s setting and context, the confused feeling did not change much after the first chapter. He decides to write this anti-war book about the little known Bombing of Dresen, and the latter chapters are where the story of Billy Pilgrim actually begins.
Slaughterhouse-Five is eyebrow raising, strange, and vaguely dream-like throughout as a result of the famous time-traveling aspect, integration of aliens, and so many various timelines. It is peppered with shockingly morbid and weighty commentary on war intermixed with supposedly comical situations, scenarios, and lighthearted and unserious tones of speaking and narration. I was not amused, but it is definitely not false advertising when labeled as black humor or satire.
So it goes. This statement appears one hundred and six times throughout the novel. It is repeated and repeated and repeated. Usually after a death. As a reader, I was forced to ruminate consciously, and I’m sure, unconsciously, about what this statement means, to me as a bystander and how it contributes to the book’s overall message. Although this book is famously anti-war, it does not boast a very willful or strong or confident protagonist, whether it be Vonnegut’s voice through Billy or Billy himself. Billy is cowardly. He begs his companions during the war to simply leave him to die in the snow, he marries a woman he does not love nor respect, and does not care to get close to his own son. He knows exactly how he dies and when, and does not do anything to prevent it. A horrible man he lays next to in the hospital speaks rudely and unfavorably about him and his experiences, and he does not do anything to defend himself. Is this his coping mechanism?
So it goes. The statement sums up Billy and his attitude towards war, life, time, in one fell swoop. So it goes. Wars are like glaciers. You can be anti-war or anti-glacier as you wish, but there is no stopping them or their existence. So it goes. Billy, and presumably Vonnegut, are tired of war, tired of the suffering of civilians and soldiers and anyone involved in war, tired of being the playthings of world leaders and those who never have to be on the ground falling victim to the war crimes and atrocities committed against them and their loved ones and fellow citizens. They are tired. They are anti-war. But they are also resigned. So it goes. This is not a feel good story or narrative about someone who is actively anti-war, who actively seeks to destroy war’s place in our society and world timeline, someone who protests and fights for the rights of those who suffer. This is a story of someone ordinary, who saw the effects of war first hand, who suffers from the memories of the sights he has seen, the plain suffering of the helpless, and accepts it as the truth of our society. Is it unavoidable? How is Billy Pilgrim or Kurt Vonnegut supposed to know? How are any of us supposed to know?
I don’t care that I didn’t quite understand some aspects of the timeline and series of events. I don’t care that I don’t really know if Billy Pilgrim was an actual person that Vonnegut knew during the war or if he is fictionalized. This was a wonderful, interesting, wacky reading experience and I learned a lot as someone who went in knowing nothing about the Bombing of Dresden and frankly, not much about war. It’s difficult to categorize this story into a central theme or group of themes such as aging, comradery, time, PTSD, imagination, escapism, depression. And I won’t attempt to. There’s no need. I hope to one day reread this and pick up more that I missed from this first go. But it was hardly a shabby attempt.
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