So it goes.

So, um, Slaughterhouse-Five.
It wasn't what I expected. It was better, deeper, more interesting...

I had very little background knowledge about this book, other than the fact that it is about the bombing of Dresden in WWII. I was surprised, then, to see that Vonnegut puts the actual bombing near the end of the novel and makes it very anticlimactic, a choice he also makes with the execution of Edgar Derby, which is built up from the beginning. Since reading some different opinions, I've learned that most see this as part of his overall stylistic theme. The point isn't the bombing, the point is the war, and if everything is inevitable (another theme), why should it be dramatic when someone dies? So it goes.

The structure was almost Heart of Darkness-style, having an "I" narrator who would only show up in certain parts, with an omniscient, third-person view of Billy Pilgrim the rest of the time. Hmm.

Vonnegut has a way of writing his characters that really gets me. I feel for poor Roland Weary, whose loneliness is pitiable even though he is fat, boorish and annoying. I love Valencia, Billy's wealthy, obese wife, because it is obvious she loves him. Wild Bob is pathetic as he wishes his dramatic goodbye to a platoon that never knew him and couldn't have cared less when he died. And Billy is powerfully disjoint; I never knew whether or not to trust him (Montana Wildhack, anyone?).

My favorite image from the book comes from the Tralfamadorians (an alien society Billy joins that I can't figure out whether or not is supposed to be idealized). They have a different concept of time than we do on Earth; they see people as "great millipedes, with babies' legs on one end and old people's legs on the other." Everything that will happen/has happened IS happening, and the Tralfamadorians accept every action they have done/will do as inevitable, believing "the moment is structured that way." Instead of dwelling on the bad parts of their lives, they can pick and choose which times to visit. Death, then, is never sad; though the person may not be alive at this particular moment, we can always visit one in which they are just fine. Many people see this as a skewed coping strategy for Billy, who has encountered an overwhelming volume of tragedy in his own life, even outside the war.

As a Tralfamadorian explains to Billy (while describing the structure of books in his society), "There isn’t any particular relationship between the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time." Vonnegut channels this attitude in his fragmented style, giving the reader just a few paragraphs in a particular time in Billy's life before jumping suddenly to another, leaving the reader with a sense of depth in the fact that one can get something out of each anecdote. This is strange and interesting to read, because there are probably no less than ten storylines going on at any given time, and the reader has no idea which is really happening "now," because there IS no "now." There are only a collection of moments that make up a life, and we see them all, from Billy's birth to the death he so emotionlessly predicts. He is "unstuck in time;" he knows when each event will occur, and none of them are sad.

As for motifs/symbols, many recur, but I believe some to be pointless just for the sake of being pointless (I would not put that past Vonnegut), or just to provide the reader with another way to question Billy's sanity (color sequences will recur in passages we know to be true/real and then show up in some we don't). Billy is an optometrist by trade, so that associates him with vision, but I don't know if I'm supposed to believe he can "see" or if I'm supposed to think it ironic that he can't. Owl imagery (knowledge?) pops up every so often, but the instances are so different that, again, I can't tell if Vonnegut is going for symbolism or irony. I made a list of the many blue-and-ivory references (a color combination that repeats when someone is dead/close to death). Oh--another thing I loved--after every mention of death, no matter how large or small, he writes "So it goes," keeping the reader engaged in the Tralfamadorian concept of death.

All in all, it was a fascinating read, and I'm happy I've expanded my horizons a bit.
As stated in Billy's ironic epitaph, "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt."