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Slaughterhouse-Five
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DISCUSSION OPEN Slaughterhouse-Five Group Read
On the subject of free will. Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far, away, I was an evangelical Christian. I spent a great deal of time with Calvinists - for whom there is no such thing as free will. God has predetermined our fates, and nothing we can do will change that. That never stopped them trying: in fact, they'd tell me that if you didn't try to improve your life and those of others around you, it was because you weren't one of God's chosen. In the same sense, I'd say Billy's decision to talk about Tralfamadore at a specific time in his life isn't at all incompatible with a belief that there's no free will.On the other hand, I've never understood the conceit that being able to "see" time would prove predetermination. "Before" the Big Bang, there was no time. Time starts with the Big Bang, and instantaneously a universe exists with all of time, and our part in it can still be ruled by our own choices without requiring predetermination: it's simply that the Tralfamadorians can "see" what those choices were. So, whether Vonnegut got this wrong or not, I think the Tralfamadorians did...
This is my first reading of Vonnegut and I wasn't really impressed.The jumping back and forth didn't really bother me. It seemed like it might be a coping mechanism for Billy Pilgrim. Obviously all of this stuff really happened and as he got older he had to keep coping.
"So it goes" is a way (for me anyway) to look at life, sort of a "que sera sera" type deal. There are many things that happen to people and the world over a course of a lifetime, and so few of those things are actually under the control of the people they affect. They just are.
I think the Tralfamadorians' view is perhaps another coping mechanism for Billy. He has to tell himself that he is not responsible for disastrous events he has witnessed, that it would have happened anyway.
Ruby wrote: "GROUP READ DISCUSSION -SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE
So what did everybody think of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut?
I've jotted down a few questions to get the ball rolling, but feel free to ask/ans..."
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I'll admit - I don't see the logic to that. "Believe me that there's no free will, but also you must keep trying to change things"? Yeah, it's not for me!
re: "I've never understood the conceit that being able to "see" time would prove predetermination."
I agree. What you would see would be the latest in a series of continual updates surely? Then again, I'm with Chief O'Brien on this: "I hate temporal mechanics."
Wow, so many different interpretations!I thought that the use of so it goes was used to show how often people die in the book, and eventually you get de-sensitized to the line and a bit bored of reading it, probably like Vonnegut was de-sensitized to death in the war.
Also, in the sentence preceding the phrase, whether lots of people die, one person dies (and I think after a dog died once?) they are all given the same line, "So it goes." I wonder what that means... Are they all equally as important? Or unimportant?
I loved how the book ends, too. I thought that with the birds Vonnegut was saying "Well what sense do you want me to make of all of this?" At the beginning he speaks about how difficult it was for him to write and how many times he tried it, and I think that's because he was trying to form some sort of commentary or opinion on his experience, when his ultimate conclusion with the book was that there was no way to justify it and it made no sense at all.
Seeing all the different ways people have interpreted the book in this group has shown me what an awesome writer Vonnegut is, don't you think? :D
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Another thing to keep in mind about the less-then-heroic Billy is that the book was written in 1969, when Vietnam was challenging people's assumptions about war and the people who fought it. Billy's character is in direct contrast to the traditional John Wayne action hero type of soldier usually portrayed in fiction. Making it hard to cheer for him makes it harder to cheer for the war.
Which leads me to ask people what they make of Billy's son. Robert is presented in that near-mythical, bad-kid turned war hero ala John Wayne way. What point is Vonnegut trying to make with Robert?
On a related note, the idea of the bad kid getting straightened out by the army is a common one, and I've known a few people who fit this stereotype. However, most teenage boys are beasts, and most of them straighten out when they get older, at about the age when most kids are likely to join the army. It seems to me the military is getting credit for a lot of growing-up that is likely to happen anyway.
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Can you expand on that a bit please? I'm not sure I'm understanding that point.
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Can you expand on that a bit please? I'm not sure I'm understanding that point."
Your action hero types are there to be cheered on. They make rousing speeches and risk their lives to save their comrades. If we think they're heroic, we automatically think their cause is heroic. (I'm talking here about the most obvious kind of war film, which is what most war films were up until then.)
Instead of the stereotypical war hero, Vonnegut gives us poor pathetic Billy. No one is rooting for him to win, especially since he's not even playing. He's not a square jawed hero that functions as a symbol of the good fight, he's a sad figure that's a symbol of how powerless people are when they're caught up in 'grand' events.
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Whitney wrote: "Julissa wrote: "Billy's apathy did nothing to endear him to me. I understand that it was part of the story and because there was no free will he was powerless to change things... I just couldn't ca..."I didn't think much of Robert's role in this book, actually. But since you brought it up I gave it some thought.
Robert is almost the complete opposite of Billy, in terms of strength. Robert is a tough Marine and Billy was almost completely useless in wartime. On top of the virtually non-existent father-son relationship, Vonnegut might have done this to show us that Billy never really grew up. Billy is consistently weak and there isn't much growth in his character versus Robert growing up and straightening out.
Billy couldn't even share the horrors of war with Robert and as a father having seen bombings of that scale in Dresden, one'd think he'd have at least advised him against participating in the war.
Ruby wrote: "Julissa wrote: "Billy's apathy did nothing to endear him to me. I understand that it was part of the story and because there was no free will he was powerless to change things. This added to that h..."I look at this story as more of a cautionary tale. We aren't meant to like Billy Pilgrim. I don't think we are even meant to root for him as a traditional protagonist.
I believe Billy's story is meant to represent the passive quality that can exist in everyone. While reading this book, I found my frustration level growing. I wanted to scream at Billy, "Do something about it!"
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Yeah, I think that's what I'm trying to say. 'Pro-war' depiction of soldier = John Wayne. 'Anti-war' depiction of soldier = Billy Pilgrim. Billy is deliberately the opposite of the heroic film soldier. I'm not trying to make some complex point here.
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This is one of the things that puzzled me about Robert's character. Vonnegut says he told his sons never to participate in massacres, while Billy is proud of his Green Beret son. Going back through the text I found this bit "Billy liked him, but didn’t know him very well. Billy couldn’t help suspecting that there wasn’t much to know about Robert."
In addition to your point about the lack of father-son relationship I'm wondering if Vonnegut is making a point about your hero type also being the “not too deep a thinker” type. (Much like the narrator of Notes from Underground, for you Dostoevsky readers.)
I think to me the anti-war message of the book is even more clear through Billy's interactions with Roland Weary, a sadistic bully, who has created the imaginary "Three Musketeers." As he lays dying of gangrene, he blames Billy for destroying something that never existed. Maybe what Billy actually destroyed was Weary's, and the reader's, ideas about romantic militarism.
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Yes, that rings true. Well said.
Thanks for finally making me read this, Ruby. I really loved the description of the Tralfamadorian books.
"There are no telegrams on Tralfamadore. But you're right; each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message - describing a situation, a scene. We Tralfamadorians read them all at once, not one after the other. There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time."
I probably just like the idea that we might share the love of books with an alien species, but so it goes.
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Well, it's clearly too complex for me. You said, "Making it hard to cheer for (Billy) makes it harder to cheer for the war....". If Billy is the anti-war depiction (and I agree he is), then making it hard to cheer for him makes it harder to cheer AGAINST the war, no?
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"There are no telegrams on Tralfamadore. But you're right; each clump of symbols is a ..."
Yes! I loved that too. It's a wonderful idea.
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Wait, no. Okay, I think I get it. Would it clarify things if instead of saying that "Vonnegut makes it hard to cheer for Billy" I had said "Vonnegut gives us a character that it is hard to cheer for"?
I think you're giving me too much credit for subtlety, really what I'm saying is pretty banal: namely that if you're making war propaganda you have a handsome hero in a tailored uniform. If you're making anti-war propaganda, you have Billy Pilgrim in a torn woman's coat.
Ruby wrote: "I agree with all that, but how does Billy represent the war? I would have thought he came across to the sort of people who are into the "heroism of war" as "anti-hero and anti-war"."I may be way off base here, but I kind of think that Billy represents the (sometimes)randomness of war and who the "heroes" are. It is quite by accident that Billy survives at all. And yet many heroic figures died while many heroes survived. To me it fits in with the randomness of death (at least on a personal level it can seem random...maybe on the grand scheme of things it has a point).
Theo wrote: "I think to me the anti-war message of the book is even more clear through Billy's interactions with Roland Weary, a sadistic bully, who has created the imaginary "Three Musketeers." As he lays dyin..."Absolutely. And this goes along well with Valerie's post about the randomness, and how Billy survives but "heroes" don't. Weary is practically the antithesis of Billy Pilgrim - but clearly no "hero" - he dies. The two heroic types they're travelling with, die.
It is, totally, random. So it goes.
Whitney wrote: "Nasrul wrote: "Billy couldn't even share the horrors of war with Robert and as a father having seen bombings of that scale in Dresden, one'd think he'd have at least advised him against participati..."I noticed that while reading this book. I was surprised that Billy was proud of Robert, having read earlier that Vonnegut would not have his sons participate. My conclusion boils down to no two characters are exactly the same. Billy and Vonnegut may be similar but they're not identical. There lies that difference. I don't think I can see any other meaning beyond this.
There's been a lot of great points raised during this talk. What did everyone think of the the openining before it gets into the saga of Billy Pilgrim? The author talking before hand, meeting with his friend, talking with the wife, who doesn't like him because the war was killing just "babies," if I recall. Hell of a way to start a novel.
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I'm a bit of a structure freak, so that sits a bit uncomfortably with me. In my mind it's this little dangly piece that stands alone at the beginning, and isn't really balanced with or attached to the rest of the book. I do think all those things needed to be explained, and you need to hear them to understand the book, but it doesn't flow very nicely. As a standalone piece though, it's quite good.
Ruby wrote: "Daniel wrote: "There's been a lot of great points raised during this talk. What did everyone think of the the openining before it gets into the saga of Billy Pilgrim? The author talking before hand..."I loved the opening! It was an unusual prologue but quite refreshing and smart.
It begins like this:
Listen:
Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
It ends like this:
Poo-tee-weet?
Nasrul wrote: "Ruby wrote: "Daniel wrote: "There's been a lot of great points raised during this talk. What did everyone think of the the openining before it gets into the saga of Billy Pilgrim? The author talkin..."I loved the structure that the opening gives. Throughout the book, the narrator (author) reminds us that within this work of fiction is a personal account of his experiences. It is so powerful when the narrator intrudes with comments like, "That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book."
2 questions:
What meaning do you all think the subtitle, "The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death" gives?
What about some of the names his gives his characters: Pilgrim, Weary, Derby, Gluck, Merble?
Mod
That is a wonderful opening, Nasrul.
Anne - great questions. "The Children's Crusade" part is explained in the book, but I can't remember an explanation for "A Duty-Dance With Death".
I'm going to have to ponder those questions for a bit.
PS - Just remembered I skimmed a piece that mentioned the colours (blue & white) he referenced in some of the character names too. Will have to go back & find it..
Apparently, Vonnegut was referencing Louis Céline who wrote, "No art is possible without a dance with death." Duty, of course, recalls military action, it was the duty of young American men to fight and die for their country, but I think it is also a way of saying that in order to make life meaningful we must (it is our duty to) dance with death, not just give in to it, to continue to create life even as we wait for the inevitable. To me, I see it as Vonnegut's nod to his own work, the dance with death that he participated in to tell this story.
Derek wrote: "I'm sorry I missed all this. That's why I wanted to start two weeks ago - been out of touch for a week!I've got a couple of things to add, naturally :-)
I agree that the whole Dresden bombing i..."
Hello Derek, thanks for picking up the thread about Dresden. Yes indeed, the winners write history.
Going from memory of past reading, there was little military significance to Dresden. Railway lines, okay, perhaps; but track can be relaid fairly easily, seems to me. Anyway, the civilian death toll was obscenely disproportionate to the military value of the bombing campaign, if any. Even in war there must be restraint ... which is why we have the concept of "war crime" -- a term rich in irony if any is!
Whitney wrote: "Ruby wrote: "If Billy is the anti-war depiction (and I agree he is), then making it hard to cheer for him makes it harder to cheer AGAINST the war, no? .."Wait, no. Okay, I think I get it. Would ..."
Whitney, Ruby, your conversation raises a memorable feature of the book for me, the depiction of the American soldiers as, well, in many cases, slovenly, selfish, undisciplined, confused, and so on. Look, before anyone gets offended, I realize there were a great many American soldiers in this war who were dashing, brave, disciplined, and so on. But not the ones in this book, who I assume were patterned after soldiers KV served with. The American POW's in this book were a stark and sorry contrast to the hale British officers, and a shock to the Germans who expected dashing, world-beating Americans.
To glom onto Whitney's reference to John Wayne, Vonnegut gave us an astringent view of (some) American servicemen as they were, not as two decades of postwar films virtually always made them out to be: perfect, unsullied knights. Vonnegut served a high purpose in showing these men as they were: to de-glamorize war. This was an absolutely unsentimental book. Sentiment has no place in a book about war, because sentimentality about war gets people killed. Lots and lots of people. And Vonnegut wanted fewer killed.
"Dulce et Decorum Est" anyone?
The Collected Poems
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The Collected Poems ..."
That was always my favourite Wilfred Owen poem. I've loved that since high school.
Jon wrote: "Going from memory of past reading, there was little military significance to Dresden. Railway lines, okay, perhaps; but track can be relaid fairly easily, seems to me. Anyway, the civilian death toll was obscenely disproportionate to the military value of the bombing campaign, if any. "Yes. I got into reading an apologist tract about why the bombing was right, and the author played up the "munitions factories" angle, but it really did sound like small change. I imagine by that point of the war, every little machine shop could be expected to be doing something for the war effort. Apparently, though, Zeiss had a plant there. The rail yards seemed to be a matter of more urgency. Sure, you can rebuild tracks fairly quickly, but I think the USSR needed them to stop functioning immediately, to disrupt the flow of materiel to the front.
But however true any of those details might be, incendiary bombs are indiscriminate. If the bombing could have eliminated all transport to the front, and left the German Army and Air force completely without telescopic sights, it could have been done as successfully with high explosive bombs.
Jon wrote: "Whitney, Ruby, your conversation raises a memorable feature of the book for me, the depiction of the American soldiers as, well, in many cases, slovenly, selfish, undisciplined, confused, and so on. Look, before anyone gets offended, I realize there were a great many American soldiers in this war who were dashing, brave, disciplined, and so on. But not the ones in this book, who I assume were patterned after soldiers KV served with. The American POW's in this book were a stark and sorry contrast to the hale British officers, and a shock to the Germans who expected dashing, world-beating Americans."Apparently I took a completely different lesson from this. The Americans were "slovenly" because the Germans took all the best parts of their uniform dress from them (with good reason - given that they were sending soldiers to the front without uniforms, and even without boots, by then). In comparison to the British POWs, they were confused and disorganized purely because they were new (now, there might be a small dig there - the British certainly resented the Americans waiting two years to join the war). I thought Vonnegut had made it clear when he paraded the POWs through the town that the German people did expect 'dashing, world-beating Americans', but that the captors were intentionally degrading them. Then when they reached the final camp, the British got preferential treatment. Also, didn't the American senior officers go somewhere else, while the Brits had at least a Colonel. That would certainly contribute to disorganization.
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It is interesting how little guards are mentioned. From my extensive knowledge of POW camps, gleaned almost entirely from movies, the guards didn't go into the prisoner's barracks very often. They were stationed outside the wire and on the towers overlooking the compounds.
Whitney wrote: "From my extensive knowledge of POW camps, gleaned almost entirely from movies, the guards didn't go into the prisoner's barracks very often. "I have that same extensive knowledge :-) Primarily, Hogan's Heroes and The Great Escape. But it's logical too. Prison guards spend as little time amongst the population of penitentiaries as possible, and as bad as the inmates might be, most of them probably don't actually want to kill the guards. In a POW camp, the guards know that, not too long ago, that's exactly what the inmates were trying to do.
Derek wrote: "Jon wrote: "Going from memory of past reading, there was little military significance to Dresden. Railway lines, okay, perhaps; but track can be relaid fairly easily, seems to me. Anyway, the civil..."Thanks for all that commentary; much appreciated. War is absurd, so I suppose any discussion of the "reasonable" proportion of indiscriminate violence must inherently be absurd too.
Derek wrote: "Jon wrote: "Whitney, Ruby, your conversation raises a memorable feature of the book for me, the depiction of the American soldiers as, well, in many cases, slovenly, selfish, undisciplined, confuse..."I agree, Whitney, Derek, that there were tangible reasons for the degraded condition of the American POW's, including the fact that their boots were taken, and that the Brits who stand so tall in comparison were officers, not enlisted men. Further, the Brits were perhaps uncomfortably chummy with the Germans.
But I still feel the American contingent were decidedly lacking in character even before being captured (can't cite chapter and verse at the moment), and I suspect that Vonnegut was basing this on his personal observations. I think this because his writing is marked by total artistic integrity (it seems to be; more informed readers can set me straight) and a clear-eyed lack of sentimentality. And I feel he considered it his duty to report a clear vision of what he saw as an antidote to the gung-ho military movies and TV shows his generation were raised on, which made war look like a fabulous adventure in which no one gets his hair mussed. Btw I think Heller did much the same in Catch-22, because there were some really venal G.I.'s in that one, too (disclaimer in case anyone is jumping in here: yes, I know there were legions of brave, noble American G.I.'s in the war too; of course).
I guess I'd just add that I don't think Vonnegut was doing any favors to the British or German troops either - they were depicted in no better (though different) light than the Americans. The British POWs were certainly better organized, but I think Vonnegut managed to demonstrate how riddled their armed forces were (and for all I know, still are) with class prejudice.As for the venality of any particular G.I.s, even if they were a completely insignificant percentage of the total, they're the ones we want to hear about. For all the talk of heroism, it's not John Wayne the Green Beret we really remember. It's John Wayne as Rooster Cogburn. I think that's also part of why Robert exists in the book: he's a hero, and he's pretty much a non-entity. Billy's wife, daughter and even father-in-law, figure more prominently than his son.
I can't say that the entire American contigent were lacking in character. Sure Roland Weary is, but what about the high school teacher, Edgar Derby. I'd say he was fundamentally a decent guy. Which makes it even more absurd that he was the one to be sentenced to death by firing squad. I also have a vague memory of the time on the boxcar when Vonnegut mentions that food was shared equally among the captured Americans (while there was food). I would say that he portrayed the truth of the soldiers he was around, some were decent, some weren't.
Hmmm most of what I wanted to say has been said, and said much better.I'll add that in Vonnegut's Armageddon in Retrospect, a collection of short works the first piece is non-fiction, called "Wailing Shall Be In All Streets", its quite good. Describes Dresden and people, the bombing and the aftermath, in both the immediate and broader sense.
Mod
LOL. That's exactly what I was going to say! I didn't exactly expect Sergeant Schultz, but I did expect a more obvious presence of guards.
Theo wrote: "Apparently, Vonnegut was referencing Louis Céline who wrote, "No art is possible without a dance with death." Duty, of course, recalls military action, it was the duty of young American men to figh..."Very well said - thank you for posting the original from Celine. In relating the dance with death idea to Vonnegut's work as an author, do you think it was difficult for him to write this book, or any of his books?
Anne wrote: "In relating the dance with death idea to Vonnegut's work as an author, do you think it was difficult for him to write this book, or any of his books?"In the intro, where Vonnegut addresses the reader directly, he mentions the difficulties that he has had writing about his war experiences. So, this book was probably 25 years in the making as he worked through his thoughts and feelings on the subject and eventually found a way to write about it.
So very late to this conversation am I. I have done my best to absorb everyone's thoughts here. From the outset I want to admit to using "so it goes" in my blogs/comments at Salon/and an essay that will be published this fall. I grew up with Vonneguts everywhere in my house in the 60s and 70s. In so many ways he was the chronicler of the liberal imagination playing with science, war, insanity, and the existential blahs. It was always Vonnegut's ability to delve deep into cultural issues while maintaining his absurdist humor. Gave us all hope!
Anyway, two things I want to add to everything that's been said. The first is that Slaughterhouse is by far and away the least funny and intellectually spastic of all his books. That's my opinion, but I think most people would agree with that. Humor was his answer to most stuff, his way of resolving life's crappy offerings.
Secondly, and this is important to me, I really appreciate all the discussion about Billy as a foil for ideas and how oddly passive he was. As characters go it was like he was a vacuum, like he had so little personal volition. And he never once said, enough! He would go in rooms and cry by himself and then travel here and there through time (and space). I suppose his one tidbit of definition came when he began speaking publicly about Trafalmadore. But no passion, no dirty thoughts, no hostility, no sense of failure, no dreams, no nuthin.
I have to say, that kind of lead male character seems to be common in modern literature. Either they're sort of bad guys and skanks (like in Toni Morrison novels) or they're foils and passive puppies. Not always, but it seems very marked. I mean, I really wanted to slap to piss out of Billy. Seriously.
David wrote: "I have to say, that kind of lead male character seems to be common in modern literature. Either they're sort of bad guys and skanks (like in Toni Morrison novels) or they're foils and passive puppies. Not always, but it seems very marked. I mean, I really wanted to slap to piss out of Billy. Seriously."Oh me too! I wanted to just shake him out of his apathy.
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I think that's true. I've read quite a few "unbearably passive male character" novels recently.
Yeah, I'm actually beginning to have a problem with that. I actually started noticing it heavily reading Lolita a few years back. It's really bad...I mean really bad in Freedom but it's all over the place really. No wonder men don't read literary fiction much anymore. Even idiots like Portnoy Portnoy's Complaint, Rabbit Rabbit, Run, , and Hank Bascombe Independence Day are actually pretty reserved and existentially impotent...Maybe Vonnegut started it all with SL5.
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We've discussed poor Billy's passivity already, how he's intentionally an antithesis of the action hero type etc. What about some of the other "unbearably passive male characters"? I assume you're both referring to main, not secondary, characters, and ones where the writer made a deliberate choice to have that passivity, not just books where the passivity is a result of bad writing.
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My review's here if you're interested: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
...and now that I remember more of it, it probably ties in with some of the ideas around the religion he's involved in. "The Forest Jews" are essentially instructed to never try to understand anything.
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I've got a couple of things to add, naturally :-)
I agree that the whole Dresden bombing is rarely mentioned: for years, I knew about it almost exclusively from this book. In Canada, when a TV mini-series included an episode on Bomber Command, and specifically the firebombing of Dresden, and the Canadian War Museum showed an exhibit critical, the Canadian Legion and other veterans groups automatically attempted to suppress them (see Truth doesn't dishonour veterans).
It's a sad truth that history is written by the victors. The winning side never commits war crimes.
It's probably not as true as Vonnegut said, that Dresden had no war industry and no military targets. If nothing else is true, Dresden did have a huge train yard, and much of the traffic to the Eastern Front must have passed through there. The USSR apparently asked for those yards to be destroyed — but one still has to wonder why incendiaries were used, as they could hardly be the ideal way to destroy train tracks.