I'll start.
(p. 28.) "And Lot's wife , of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human."
Say what you want to about the Bible* -- literal word of G-d, or collection of myths -- it's got some great stories in it, which can engage even an avowed Secular Humanist like Vonnegut. The same incident also inspired Wislawa Szymborska to write a poem about it. I'll give you the first few lines, then a link to the rest.
They say I looked back out of curiosity.*"The Bible" is punctuated in an odd (perhaps unique) fashion. If you're talking about the book, its title, it's always capitalized, but not underlined or italicized.
But I could have had other reasons.
I looked back mourning my silver bowl.
Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.
So I wouldn't have to keep staring at the righteous nape
of my husband Lot's neck.
From the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead
he wouldn't so much as hesitate.
From the disobedience of the meek.
Billy visits his mother in a nursing home.
ReplyDelete"Her voice was nearly gone, so, in order to hear her, Billy had to put his ear right next to her papery lips. She evidently had something very important to say."
It's very intimate. Maybe too intimate. He's has to lean in very close to a dying person -- his own mother at that. His ear, her lips. Her papery, dry, desiccated lips.
" "How. . .?' she began, and stopped. She was too tired. She hoped that she wouldn't have to finish the rest of the sentence, that Billy would finish it for her.
"But Billy had no idea what was on her mind. 'How what, Mother?' he prompted.
"She swallowed hard, shed some tears. Then she gathered energy from all over her ruined body, even from her toes and fingertips. At last she accumulated enough to whisper this complete sentence:
'How did I get so old?' "
Leaving aside the fact that that's a question that everyone will ask himself at some point, that's good writing. Simple, yes, but effective even moving. "Then she gathered energy from all over her ruined body."
I agree. I've read Slaughterhouse-Five twice before and its always a great experience. Billy Pilgrim's life and all the strange details are extremely entertaining and moving (like your example.)Vonnegut is one of my favorite writers.
ReplyDeleteAn early scene in the book that I particularly enjoy is when Billy and Weary are in a trench, and Weary explains that his knife blade was made to create wounds that wouldn't close. The passage goes on to a sidebar about how Billy knew a thing or two about violence himself. It talks about a grotesque crucifix in his childhood bedroom and how "Billy's Christ died horribly." I'm not sure why I like this part so much, it might just be the way Vonnegut wrote it.
He has a way of "making the familiar seem unfamiliar". Things that we take for granted, things that we never bother looking at, he makes us see.
ReplyDeleteSo far, I've had a hard time getting into this book. I really think it is very well written and interesting, but it doesn't exactly appeal to me every single page. Yet, I have found some sections that I really enjoyed reading and was impressed with. I was very interested with page 27. Billy is talking about death and what he learned at Tralfamadore. The Tralfamadorians see life very differently than earthlings see. "They can see how permanent moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illlusion we have have on Earth that one moment follows another, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever." I just thought it was not only inspirational, but applicable to the Billy in the war. A lot of people see tragedy, such as war, and begin to appreciate life. I think Billy feels the same, which I kind of am inferring through the way he sets up his story. He travels in time to all these moments he will always remember. Those are the memories he has of his time on Earth. The ironic part is these moments aren't "gone forever," just as the Tralfamadorians said. He is re-visiting them by traveling in time, but I also think this shows moments aren't gone "forever" because you have them in your memories. What do you guys think about the time traveling in the story? I feel like it has all sorts of special meaning that I am not quite understanding.
ReplyDelete"I really think it is very well written and interesting, but it doesn't exactly appeal to me every single page."
DeleteGeez, Martha. You're setting the bar awfully high there, don't you think? :)
I have to say that although the language of "Slaughterhouse-Five" is very easy to read, there were certain parts of the story that were not very interesting to read. One part I found interesting about Billy in general was his behavior during the war. Even though he fought in the war and went throughthe experience of being a prisoner of war, he constantly wanted to be left behind by the three other men. It made Billy a less likeable character and a bit of a coward. And this behavior continues when he is a prisoner of war. I don't even know what to call his behavior of wearing the curtain like a toga and taking the silver boots, but I found it really strange and I didn't quite understand why he acted that way.
ReplyDelete"Less likeable and a bit of a coward". And do you know what else? More human.
DeleteWhen one is sundered from his usual environment, and especially when one is placed in a completely bizarre environment -- imagine being a prisoner, imagine having no say whatsoever, imagine being thousands of miles away from home and all friends and loved ones, imagine all this at 19 years old -- and any behavior becomes the norm.
BTW, big thanks and kudos to you -- Bruno, Martha, and Rebecca -- for your timely responses. It's an example of what I call "The Hany Principle" (after a former student). It's when merely doing what you ought to do makes you exceptional.
You do make a point Mr. Mac. Seeing Billy scared and wanting to give up does make him seem more human. I guess that all the war stories that I have read in the past have had people scared out of their wits during battles pull themselves together in order to survive, where I didn't really see that in Billy. It is almost in expectation in war stories to see people fight through the gruesome and horrible aspects and strive to live and return home to their families and loved ones, where Billy wanted to give up and stop. Personally, it really irritates me when people give up because I am one of those people who never gives up on any goal no matter what obstacles are thrown in my path. I'm not a big fan of giving up.
DeleteI honestly find Billy Pilgrim really annoying as a character. He doesn't try in his life. During the war, Roland Weary literally had to drag him along so that he would live. Billy also didn't even like his wife! He calls her ugly, fat, and a symptom of his disease. If he didn't love her then he should have tried to find someone he did love. When she said she would lose weight and become beautiful for him, he told her no because he had seen their life and it was satisfactory. Trying something new could have made their satisfactory life amazing for all he knew. Depression is one thing, but not doing anything about it really bothers me.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I find very ironic is how Billy asks why the Tralfamadorians don't prevent the one from pressing the button and destroying the universe. He's in the same situation as the Tralfamadorians. He knows the future, but he doesn't do anything about it. Can he do anything about it? If Billy could change what happened by his time traveling, he probably wouldn't do it anyways.
I also find the whole situation about how the Tralfamadorians don't prevent the destruction of the universe very interesting and very hard to understand. I feel that most people would try to prevent that kind of destruction from happening if they had prior knowledge. I know personally that if I knew that the world was going to be destroyed because someone hit a button, I would be doing everything in my power to prevent that.
DeleteBut I think that Vonnegut makes the Tralfamadorians act that way because he is trying to make a point about wars and countries. Tralfamadorians act like the governments of countries, very separated from people. They are aware that wars will kill people and can potentially destroy lives, but countries still wage war against each other. And the reasons for these wars are not always fully understood by the general public.
Oh one more thing, it seems to me that Trafamadorians understand that violence and destruction are inevitable, no matter what people try to do to prevent that. And for me, it is kind of sad that Vonnegut sees people and the world as always prone to that kind of behavior but I do understand how he can come to that conclusion. After all, he did survive the city of Dresden get fire bombed and watched the city burn.
DeleteDani --
Deletere: "Depression is one thing, but not doing anything about it really bothers me."
I understand your frustration. It's hard not to feel that way, but one of the defining characteristics of clinical depression is that you can't do anything about it. We would never tell a person with her leg in a cast "C'mon, you lazy bones, just get out of bed and have a nice jog." But when somebody's just "blue", it's hard to realize that it may be the same thing.
Rebecca --
On my bad days, I picture a person as being like an hourglass. What starts out as a full chamber of hope -- day by day, grain by grain -- turns into one full of despair. You can just get tired all of the dunderheadness of man.