"Ignore the awful times and concentrate on the good ones"

"Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams."- Ashley smith

Since I was a toddler, I've always enjoyed reading, however, I wasn't the type of child who read every book I could reach. I wasn't like Matilda from Roald Dahl's book, yet, last year I realized I really liked non-fiction books, especially those who talk about the future, such as utopian and dystopian novels. Through his life, Billy Pilgrim has encountered a rather interesting source of life, the so-called Trafalmadorians, who inhabit the Trafalmadore planet. As every different civilization they differ from us in various ways, such as their perspectives on life’s aspects and their anatomy.

Life is Life. It can be lived in many different ways, in different manners, but it will always be life. You can enjoy its every aspect and receive nourishment from the first day of life, or throw it aside and let life die. I believe, we humans choose our destiny, our choices makes us who we are. Haven’t you ever wondered what would have happened if you hadn’t done something when you were smaller, or what if you had done this other thing? We all reach a destiny, however, we all take different paths to reach it. The Trafalmadorians think that we have a destiny with a predestined route we cannot vary, we have our choices already make and the only thing left for us to do, is to enjoy life. “On other days we have wars as horrible as any you’ve ever seen or heard about. There isn’t anything we can do about them, so we simply don't look at them. We ignore them. We spend eternity looking at the pleasant moments” 

War means death, and if there is war there is death.

“So Billy uncorked it with his thumbs. It didn't make a pop. The champagne was dead. So it goes”- Chapter four, pg. 73 

So it goes. What do you think when you hear this sentence? It may mean many things, it could fit in different situations, it could relate to various topics. It just states that things go on, time passes and things change, that's life; but, what does it mean when Vonnegut uses it? I’ve come to realize that after a death occurs in the book, so it goes. Vonnegut uses it after the decease of someone. An utterly common event in war.  This is one of the few things that cannot be avoidable in war, it is something we have no control of. War means death, and if there is war there is death. 

This book is dedicated to war, to the Dresden bombing in World War II. I believe Vonnegut is trying to convey the message that in war there is always going to be the loss of life, that it something ordinary but, grotesque. That as there are so many losses there is really no time to stop and think about it, just time to run and protect yourself, its the place to be selfish and only think about me, myself and I. It makes me think of the holocaust, of how hundreds of jews died everyday but no one really cared, they were treated as something not worth living. Those hundreds of people who supported Hitler what were their reasons to follow him? To clean the world? To clean the world from what? Everyone is different and just because of their believes they are not less worth than others, not even by their skin color they should be classified as not pure, there is nothing like that. Everyone should be equal. Still, Vonnegut seems to have compassion to all of these deaths, as he writes about the Trafalmadorians and their thoughts about life and death. Which are about how when someone dies they are not truly dead, the just seem to be so. They may be dead in the future and present but, they're always in memories that come from the past, they continue to live in other places and times. 

1944, 1958, 1955, 1967?

Is this all part of Billy’s imagination? In what year is he really stationed? Did he make it all up? Why does he suddenly travel in time? or are they really flashbacks? These are some of the questions I often ask myself while reading "Slaughterhouse-Five". 

Sometimes, when one goes through a very shocking and distressing event the most common reaction our mind has is to erase all these memories. To block them and put them in box in the corner of our minds, to never have to revive them or ever think of them again. However, what Billy Pilgrim may be going through is the opposite, the opening of that box, the peeking into what is inside it, receiving in its way flashbacks. In the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind there is this company which erases memories from our mind; things we won't like to remember. It similar to when someone drinks too much alcohol and doesn't remember anything from the night before, which would leave a gap or a missing part in one's memory about a specific event, the difference is that here it is voluntary. In the process of deleting his unwanted memories, the main character of the movie has to revisit and restore them in order to forget about their existence. Which although not very relevant to Billy's situation, it is similar and it could compared. He is resuscitating everything he went through in World War II, living through every detail and every sensation as if he where there again. Nonetheless, he may have confused this with time travel, and let his imagination flow to the unreal, creating the Trafalmadore. Who then provide him a different way of looking at death, something very common in war. That could be his own, personal and unique way of forgetting the past and getting through with it, by living it again unconsciously. 

How to phrase it?

Relaxed? Tranquil? Careless? Casual? What is the right word to describe how Vonnegut writes about war? It amazes me his writing technique, it is so calm and easy. It's fluent and informs in  a different way, it provides a different perspective of war to the reader.  

This book, especially through chapter 3 has caught my undivided attention. It utterly amazes me how Billy Pilgrim acts in reaction to his experiences in war. This text leaves the reader with a lot to bear in mind providing him with plenty of material to think thoroughly. Through out the text Vonnegut casually ends ideas and paragraphs with the line "So it goes." This adds a certain tone of causality to the book. The chapter is rather emphasized on the war experiences Billy had during WWII. The grotesque images that pop into the readers mind are just horrid. The causalities of war aren't a topic one talks fluently or rather in a relaxed and careless tone. However, this is exactly what Vonnegut does through the text as he describes the crude events of wartime. By using this phrase, so it goes, it is implied that the deaths of a dozens of people during this time was normal, something we saw everyday. It adds a certain relaxed tone to the text, which is a unique way of showing that war isn't as an easy topic to write about, even if what you're trying to say is against it. 

And so on, so it goes.

"It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before” -Unknown

Chapter 2 of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is based upon Billy Pilgrim. A narrator retells Billy's life since he was born until the current day. Billy fought during WWII as a naive, young and unexperienced soldier accompanied by Weary, and then became an optometrist. Billy then writes about how he was kidnapped by a flying saucer, a UFO, and taken to another planet, Tralfmadore. The planet was inhabited by creatures who thought differently about death, time and life. As a person dies he really is never gone, he only appears to die. He exists in the past, in the which he was healthy and strong, it's a memory that will never disappear, it will always remain.  Moments are permanent, and no one can take away the past. 

This is a different way of viewing the death of a loved one, it makes it less tragic. In its way it's true, a dead person may not be in the present nor the future, but it will forever remain in the past. It teaches us a different perspective of viewing death, which occurs very continuously through the lapse of a war.  Although not really relevant to the topic of war, these aliens can teach us of different ways to understand life and death. Helping us overcome our grief and melancholy of having lost a loved one. Billy's daughter Barbara, reacts rather negatively towards her father anecdotes. He is rejected by her and called a liar, by which a plane crash he had when younger affected him mentally. 
     
This makes think of a situation I saw in a movie, article or a book when I was smaller, although completely irrelevant it made that person feel unsupported and rejected. I don't remember exactly what was the accusation, but the main character was charged for a crime he didn't commit, however he was innocent and that something that none believed. They never believed his innocence until he was proved free of charges and was let go. He was ostracized by society and didn't receive support from his close friends nor family when he most needed it. They thought it was bizarre to believe him, as they where completely sure he had committed that crime. They weren't there when he most needed them. What class of people are they? Are they true friend? Even if they don't share the same opinions and thoughts they could support their friend. I ask myself the same thing regarding Barbara's reaction to his father's stories. They may be a lie, or they may be true, but at least he is doing something that he enjoys.