Slaughterhouse Five

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, is a widely known anti war novel, which explores the idea of time travel, and the effects of war have on a persons mental state. We learn about Billy Pilgrim through multiple time traveling events in his life, from being in war, to being abducted by aliens.

This book uses the scifi and fantasy ideas to tell a story of a man who was widely effected by war. Another thing I found interesting is how Vonnegut pretty much stated and made the reader understand that we are reading a novel. Vonnegut used Billy's reality to tell the story along with his/our own reality. Tying fantasy and history together.

Billy Pilgrim suffered many traumatic experiences, and suffers from hallucinations, like PTSD. This causes him to believe he was abducted by aliens, pretty much mirroring his days of being a prisoner of war, but it differed in many ways. There are many psychological meanings to the Tralfamadorians, and what they represent to Billy, and using the aliens as a device in this book is actually quite genius, like most of Vonnegut's ideas. The time travel and fantasy journey's all reflect back to Billy's well being and life, his guilt he feels, the idea of free will, suffering and morality.

The idea of death in this book is also something very interesting. The Tralfamadorian mantra of "so it goes" is used after death multiple times in this book. As a reaction on how to handle it, there is nothing you can do, it just happens... So it goes. Another Tralfamadorian concept is being able to see the past present and future all at once, and how it is pretty much displayed all in front of you. The way this book messes with time in space is quite interesting and is reflected in the narrative structure.

I also saw this book very vividly in my head, like most things I read. If this isn't a movie already, I am pretty sure it would make an a pretty cool war-fantasy-alien-time travel- film. What a concept.

Reading this story got me into other Vonnegut stories, and his way of writing is entertaining, and meaningful, in such weird ways.