Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonngut

Slaughterhouse Five

by Kurt Vonnegut

10 words: Sideways exploration during, before, and after the firebombing of Dresden.

     Slaughterhouse Five is the story of a Billy Pilgrim, a man who was an american soldier in WWII, though he wasn't a very good one at that. He claims that he was abducted  by aliens and that they taught him about the way that Time can work in the nonlinear fasshon. This has caused him to be unstuck in time and as such the story follows him through different points in his life jumping between moments in a nonlinear way. 

     This story is neet. Billy is a very simple person, with a very good live but not very interesting. To his children he has completely lost his mind when he starts telling the world about Time and the Aliens. Yet to him he is telling them the complete truth. You can't really tell if he is just a crazy old man. Or if what happened to him Actually happened. All you know is that HE believes it, and his Daughter doesn't.

     I also liked the way that Billy's wife is displayed. It is never actually stated that she is large and overweight. But whenever she is mentioned what is described is the food she is eating. The candy bars in her hands, or the wrappers. This gives me the feeling that Billy doesn't see her weight as a problem, its just a normal fact about the way she acts. 

     The way the story is told, through the different jumps through time leads to my uncertainty of weather or not billy was truly abducted by aliens or not. The way we as a reader is unstuck in time throughout reading about his life makes you wonder if Billy is actually living his life that way, and not just us. It also makes me wonder what that would be like. I kinda don't think Billy is crazy enough for it to really be happening to him. You would never know any context about what happened "yesterday" to the moment you are in. I would be forever writing things in my schedule and continually looking at the calendar because i wouldn't know what I needed to do when... ever! 

(This was read as apart of following along with Crashcourse Literature... I am just not reading them in the same order it seems... and I am skipping a few because I can't follow the Odyssey very well and I am over Hamlet... )