I have finally finished slaughterhouse five, and was glad to see the connections that began to appear in his time travels that related to the importance of the story. Things that he traveled to that did not make sense, or did not seem to fit in the story began to make sense. For example, when he travels to the time his father throws him in the pool to sink or swim, it does not make sense as to why this would be included until it is found out later that this is part of the causes of his emotional problems. Another thing that I was glad to see was that his experiences in time traveling later brought into more detail some serious events that happened in his life. It is not until the later chapters that we learn about the details of his plane crash, his wife's death and his relationship with Montana Wildhack. I also liked how it wasn't till the second to last page that he explained Derby's death as the person who was killed for taking a teapot, the same person mentioned in the first chapter. A third thing that I really enjoyed about this book was how many coincidences he seemed to have throughout the book, meeting people or their relatives, such as Kilgore Trout living in his same town in Ilium, Iowa.
Still, like in any story, there are questions that come unresolved and things that don't seem to add up. The first thing that I am curious about, since I have not read the books... is Eliot Rosewater meant to be a character from his book, "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater" or is it just a coincidence. Also, in the second chapter it says that Billy is the only survivor of the plane crash, but in the seventh chapter, when the crash is fully explained, Vonnegut says that both Billy and the copilot survive. Finally, out of all the times that the idea of "So it goes" appears in the book after nearly every mention of something dying, there are two instances where this does not happen where it seems it should. The first appears on page 121 when a woman refers to the execution of Edgar Derby, and the second on page 199, when he told of how George Nathan, the critic and editor, died in 1958. It just seemed odd that he took so much care as to label all deaths with a so it goes, but he missed these two spots. Maybe I am looking at things that are just coincidence and have nothing to do with anything, but I just thought I would put it out there.
I didn't even notice that there were two deaths where Vonnegut didn't say "so it goes." I wonder if Vonnegut did that on purpose. On 199 he mentions how Nathan was alive somewhere according to the Traflamadorians, so that could be in place of "so it goes." I can't think of a reason why he didn't say it on 121. I guess it seems like Vonnegut added so many details that it must have been on purpose. Maybe not, though.
ReplyDeleteI like how you caught that Rosewater appearance and how he's involved in another book--this is just like how Howard W. Campbell is in Mother Night! Also, God, while i was reading i was looking for instances where he uses "So it goes." differently or not at all, and i didn't catch any. Now that i've read your post i looked back in the book, and, damn, you're right! I didn't notice those! I am, however, skeptical that they mean anything...maybe just an error. It'd be interesting to ask Kurt Vonnegut himself why he did that, but the circumstances don't work in favor of ever doing that (he's dead...).
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