VONNEGUT - INTRO PART TWO
He explains why the book is structured the way it is & why it is so "small." Your thoughts on this?
What else does he bring up in the beginning - before he gets into Billy Pilgrim's story - that set you up for the novel?
(views on time? death? war? etc.)
11 comments:
He is letting us know that it is about a massacre. Not only in the research that he does while visiting O'Hare, but when he says that it is quiet after a massacre and you can only hear the birds. Then he tells us that the last line in the story ends with the bird song.
I may be right in this observation and I may be wrong, but here is what I've come up with. He explains over and aver again that he is old and his memory is not good. He is constantly reiterating that he has a hard time remembering what happened in Dresden and that their wasn't much to remember. It is almost like one thing was so similar to another thing that they blended together and he could only come up with one memory instead of two. He also says "So it goes." a lot. I get the impression that by saying this he is implying that things happen. This is how it is and we can't change it. No sense in dwelling on the topic and stressing over it that's how it goes.
It's interesting to me he is living his life, and going about everyday activities, but he is still trying to remember the days of the war and wants to write in on paper to constantly remind him of the destruction that occurred.I would think that someone would want to try and forget something so traumatic. May the case is that it is so traumatic that he can't forget and writing about it acts as therapy to calm his mind.
I think the way he starts out this book is interesting. Even though he doesn't really intend to make this about him, he makes himself one of the characters. He has in some ways gone through what Billy has as far as being young and in a war. Besides the conversation he has with Harrison Starr about his thoughts on war, he bluntly says that his book is short because, "there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre" That quote alone I feel sets us up for what to expect.
He says so it goes after everytime someone dies in the book, I think he is trying to get the point across of how many people die. I think he is making death a major theme in this book seeing is that it is an anti-war book
It seemed to me that he sets the book up as an anti-war novel to make people not like war. From what he says to O'Hare's wife about how the book wont portray soldiers as heros and make other young men want to go join a pointless war to be killed or have PTSD when they get home.
I thought the way he started out the beginning of the book was kind of intruiging. It definitely got me curious and wanting to start out the actual story. He says that his memory isn't great and he doesn't recall a lot of the events which would make his book pretty short, like he said, one that stuck out in his mind was a man that was shot for taking a teapot that did not belong to him...
He also brings up that this book is about a massacre and kind of lets the reader know that it is definitely an anti-war book when he talks about meeting Mrs. O'Hare and makes it clear to her that the soldiers will not be strong men who are heros, but practically children that have no idea what they are doing.
I thought it was kind of funny to read about and I like his style thus far, But its kind of strange how it is arranged and the "time travels sound more like day dreams that turn out to be real." I still have chapter 4 to read though, so maybe it gets explained in the next 14 pages. He just talks about his past and his kids and other things that don't really seem that interesting to me, but do kind of give a feel for his style before really getting into the book so it doesn't throw you off in the "real beginning" and you don't miss anything.
Maybe its small because he jumps around and only lets the reader in on what they need to know so there can be more focus on what the book's intention is.
He says "It is so short and jumbled and jangled . . . because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre."
I think it's so small and jumbled because war is jumbled and hard to write about. I think that when he said "...there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre," shows that this book is going to have a lot of death and preparing the reader for the worst.
I think the author is a little crazy. Really annoying that he says "So it goes" all the time. He introduces the book by letting us know right away how he feels about war. Nothing good can come out of it. Then he says that this book isn't the greatest. Next one will be better. That made me not want to keep reading.
He wants readers to know how difficult it was for him to piece together this book. He continuisly says how he will never finish it, then all of a sudden he starts the story of Billy, which is not at all what the reader is expecting. I thought the book was striving for realism, but then I learned he was abducted by aleins that can see in four dimensions.
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