Vy Billy? Vy not Me?

After reading the first chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five I imagined I was only going to read about battles, massacres, violence and Billy Pilgrim’s adventures in the battlefield. Something similar to Saving Private Ryan or that type of story. After reading the fifth chapter I can assure Kurt Vonnegut has surprised me and I’ve actually have been reading about the war, but also a pre-post-and during-war story about Billy Pilgrim. I use the terms “pre-post-and during-war story” because at the same time, I have been reading about all that jumping in time and space through the past, present, and future. If a Tralfamadorian had read this book, it had read all at the same time and pictured one overall story. That’s how Tralfamadorians read, but instead of using words they have a system similar to the ones for blind people. This chapter takes us all over Billy’s life, beginning in his first trip to Tralfamadore and then going to his childhood, his honeymoon, another trip to Tralfamadore, the war and what not. Kurt Vonnegut isn’t just telling Billy’s adventure in the war, but expanding Billy’s world and excels at it by creating a whole new level of science fiction parallel to an American soldier in World War II. This type of fiction is new to me, but it reminds me of the T.V show the Big Bang Theory, in which I recall Sheldon Cooper talking about parallel worlds and theories about this. In Slaughterhouse-Five Vonnegut doesn’t talk about parallel universes, but of the events in life (in Tralfamadore) happing parallel to each other at the same time. For example, a Tralfamadorian explained to Pilgrim “We know how the Universe ends”, explaining him the end of existence and their conversation happened at the same time and that there is no way of evading war or anything that happens. It will always happen as it should, with no other variable or different events.

Finally Kurt Vonnegut has appeared in World War II. He is another American soldier and is at the hospital from the prisoner camp, where Billy is too. “There they go, there they go.” Vonnegut said meaning he was excreting even his brains. It’s al we get to know from him for now. With what I now know, I speculate that Kurt Vonnegut wrote about Billy’s life with what he learned from him those days and maybe in the following ones, and then wrote a backstory to all the craziness and insanity. I am eager to keep reading and not just because of Billy’s capture, but also because I want to know how Vonnegut got to know everything (non fiction parts) he wrote.