Reading Blog Entry (Chapters # 9-10)

Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut
Chapter # 9-10 (pgs. 182-215)

As we get closer to the end of the novel, lots of questions begin to be answered and the details from the beginning of the novel commence to be explained. For instance on chapter nine we are told about Valencia’s death. She was driving towards the hospital agitated after hearing news from the plane crash and concerned that her husband would remain in a vegetable state because of it. She unfortunately passed the turn-off and hit the brakes suddenly causing the Mercedes driving behind her to crash into her car. “Nobody was hurt, thank God, because both drivers were wearing seatbelts. Thank God, thank God.” (pg. 182) Here is a visible example of how Vonnegut mocks Christianity. After hearing his interview we learned that he grew up in an atheist family in which he was raised to believe in no God, but in destiny. When emphasizing on “thank God” we realize he is saying it sarcastically, he doesn’t really think that it is due to God that nobody was hurt, it was because of the fact that they were both wearing seatbelts.

After hitting the Mercedes, Valencia desperately screams out to the other driver what was going on and puts her car on gear then drives off. The accident had caused the Mercedes to lose a headlight only “But the rear end of the Cadillac was a body-and-fender mans wet dream. The trunk and fenders were collapsed. The gaping trunk looked like the mouth of a village idiot who was explaining that he didn’t know anything about anything.” (pg. 182) This description of the accident amazed me, how come he was relating the state of a car after a crash with a man’s wet dream? What do they have in common? Does this have a humorous purpose? When Valencia reaches the hospital her head falls against the steering wheel, and an hour later is declared dead because of carbon dioxide asphyxiation.

Meanwhile “Billy knew nothing about it. He dreamed on, and traveled in time and so forth.” (pg. 183) Next to him was bunking Bertram C. Rumdfoord which had broken his leg while skiing with his wife. He was bored to death about Billy since he said: “All he does in his sleep is quit and surrender and apologize and asked to be left alone. (pg. 184) Throughout this statement a new prediction of Billy’s state came to my mind. I believe Billy had been dreaming everything, since he was surrounded by Rumford which was reading about Dresden, maybe in his subconscious mind he created a world in which he could escape reality and live how he really desired: surrounded only by content moments. He was not actually time traveling to the war, he was just being remembered of it. Later on they mention that, “There was a talk about performing an operation on him later, one which might improve the circulation of the blood in his brain.” (pg. 190) This added up to my theory that it was all in his mind, he had been in a coma and his brain had suffered injuries, besides he lived life unhappily beforehand therefore it was his intuitive that unconsciously led him to create his individualistic utopia in his head. It can be all proven in a statement such as: “Actually Billy’s outward listlessness was a screen. The listlessness concealed a mind which was fizzing and flashing thrillingly. It was preparing letters and lectures about the flying saucers, the negligibility of death, and the true nature of time.” (pg. 190)

Billy then “time traveled” again, this time to two days after Second World War II had ended. He was riding along with five other American prisoners, back to the slaughterhouse to collect souvenirs, in a wagon driven by two horses. “Billy sat in the back of the jiggling coffin. His head was tilted back and his nostrils were flaring. He was happy.” (pg. 194) Was Billy finally happy due to the fact that war had ended? Why would he be happy in a moment after so much destruction had taken place? Did he finally feel worry free, and safe? Was pain and violence finally over? Off course that wasn’t the case, as they continued their ride they had a brief stop in which a German couple noticed that the horses pulling the wagon were full of blisters and had bleeding mouths because of the broken hooves. “When Billy saw the condition of his means of transportation, he burst into tears. He hadn’t cried about anything else in the war.” (pg. 197) Why did Billy burst into tears now? Before hand he had seen people suffering and being tortured, but what did the horses remind him off? Perhaps he realized that writing an anti-war book as the author states is impossible. For instance in this case, the war was over, but suffering still prevailed and misunderstandings and disagreements would lead to more wars. These was later reinforced when Billy returns to New York and all he sees are books about fucking, burglary and murder, news about power, sports and death bookstores in which porn was provided. Finally Billy grabs a book he found from Trout and realizes he had already read it, it was about two people sequestered by aliens and taken to another plant. Another book talked about a time machine and a magazine had the name Montana Wildhack written on it. This just comes to show how crazy Billy was; he had taken aspects from his everyday life and created a new world inside his head that satisfied his desires.

I then read a little biographical piece on Kurt Vonnegut presented by Time in partnership with CNN and I came to understand many aspects of life that Vonnegut related to Billy. Even though in the novel he does not present himself as the main character and tends to appear in random scenes, both Billy and Kurt went through very similar things throughout their lives. Among them I can include enlisting in the army while WWII took place, captured in the Battle of Bulge, being prisoners of war, and that they both survive bombing by hiding in a slaughterhouse among others. One specific trait that stood out was both the character and the author’s lack of interest in life. Vonnegut despises the human race and its vices and indeed tried to commit suicide ounce, Billy as well doesn’t enjoy being alive and takes everything for granted. Finally I could say this article gave me a concrete answer to the “So it goes” that constantly appeared and that I continually questioned. “"So it goes" is a phrase from Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-Five. It's an expression the Tralfamadorians — a race of four-dimensional aliens — repeat whenever somebody or something dies. It expresses a certain airy resignation about the inevitability of death.”(Lev Grossman)