Kurt Vonnegut's novel, Slaughterhouse- Five, shows many interesting concepts and story ideas. The flow of ideas and events is smooth and comprehensible (though the protagonist is constantly traveling through time), and it's a well written novel in a whole. Some quotes from the story caught my attention;
"It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever" (p.27).
The Tralfamadorians are aliens who perceive in four dimensions, as in they can relive or visit any point of their life in the past or future, anytime they want. In this sense, death is meaningless to them, as they see existence as infinite. For example, they propose that mourning in the case of a death is silly, as a dead person is still very alive and existing in the past. This brings us to another, very prevalent quote in the story;
"So it goes" (p.2).
This quote is seen almost every two or three pages, and it is a saying that Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, learns from meeting the aliens. It is used in the book after describing a tragic event (the Dresden bombing, a plane crash, etc), to empathize human mortality, and how little it means to the Tralfamadorians, who tell Billy about how life does not simply end with death. One more quote that caught my eye;
"'GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY TO ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE, COURAGE TO CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN, AND WISDOM ALWAYS TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE.' Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future" (p.60).
This prayer serves as a motivational quote, though Billy is described as unenthusiastic about living. I think this quote embodies Billy's powerlessness in his situation, being told of his lack of free will and choice, and then waking up uncontrollably in different points in the timeline of his life. This theme of fatalism is explored heavily in Kurt Vonnegut's science fiction, and could be seen as the most important element of the novel.
Hey Louie!
ReplyDeleteYour book seems pretty interesting as it places aliens who can see a fourth dimension with normal humans. It is quite interesting knowing how the fourth dimension is to the aliens as it can make death meaningless. Your second quote, "so it goes" has a very strong impact in your novel. Especially since it is repeated each time by Billy Pilgrim. To me it seems as if Billy does not really care and is taking what the aliens say about human a joke. Just as like we would say "right..." when following-up on something unbelievable that is said. Your last quote is indeed quite motivating as it can directly relate to us. People always want others to accept mistakes that one they have made and which they cannot change and to be able to still change what is possible. Everyone will have experienced a moment in their life which they regret something which they cannot undo.
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ReplyDeleteYour post here alludes to some extremely intriguing questions and ideas on the treatment of time. I didn't post here yesterday due to my inability to find a point of discussion. In any case, there is a quote that I was immediately reminded of:
ReplyDelete"Even more pressing, if you truly can't trust memories and records, then you also can't trust the laws of physics...So all the reasoning based on the time-reversal symmetry of the accepted laws of physics would be totally thrown into question, thereby undermining our understanding of entropy and the whole basis for the current discussion. By embracing the conclusion that the universe we know is a rare...statistical fluctuation from a configuration of total disorder, we're quickly led into a quagmire in which we lose all understanding, including the very chain of rreasoning that led us to consider such an odd explanation in the first place." (Greene 169)
(from The Fabric of the Cosmos)
How should the question of time be treated?