Farewell, Slaughterhouse Five

I guess I have come to the end of my blogging project. For everyone who took the time to read my posts, thank you. I hope I didn't waste too much of your time.
There is one thing I would like to end this blog with, one thing this book reminded me of, one thing I had kind of forgotten: hope. Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt. Hope. It's there. Always.
Farewell, Slaughterhouse Five. Somewhere in time, we are meeting again. I look forward to it. I always have and always will.
So long.

Thank you Kurt Vonnegut

 I liked Slaughterhouse Five as a whole. I thought it was interesting, thought provoking and definitely the weirdest thing I've ever read. It offered a unique perspective, an interesting format, and some pretty off-the-wall characters. There were so many things to consider while reading this novel and so many places my mind had to be at once. It was a real workout for my brain, something I think I kind of needed. There were some great references, quotes, and characters. Okay, so, the ending may not have been the greatest thing I've ever read, but it was what it was and I can't change it.
This book made me think outside the box, and it gave me some awesome writing inspiration. Some of the scenes of the more inappropriate nature were kind of unnecessary in my view, but obviously the author did not agree. This novel left me wondering a lot of things. How much of our lives do we live in our minds? How much of what we see and hear is really true? Why do we participate in these wars which ship off our young women and men to the battlefields of a once beautiful, peaceful nation, now transformed into hell? Why? That's probably one of the biggest questions I have after reading about all the things this character and this author went through. Why do we do this to the people of our world? What is the point of it all? Don't get me wrong, I have my own set of beliefs, and one of them is that everything happens for a reason and that we are all part of a plan that will work out for the good, but seeing some of the suffering up close through this character it's just hard not to wonder why people like to hurt other people.
Anyway, now that I've ranted about that for a while, I will get back to the real point of this post: Slaughterhouse Five. I first read this book last year because I picked up a copy in Value Village, read the back, and was immediately interested (don't ask me why, as this is definitely not the kind of thing I will normally even pick up). I started reading and I was hooked. Maybe I didn't get all of the hidden meanings, and there were parts that were all mixed up in my mind, but I knew this would be a book I would come back to over and over. There's just something about Vonnegut's writing that speaks to something in me. Maybe it's the way he turns the simple, mundane things into something spectacular, something I know I could have never thought of. There are things in this book I never would have thought of in such a way, probably too many to name. It's so complicated, yet it's so simple. I am a pillar pf salt.Vonnegut wrote this book for himself, to express what happened in Dresden, yet I feel like he wrote it for me. It's authentic in a way that not many things are. It doesn't feel the least bit fake or made up, even the pieces that are hard to believe are authentic, which is funny because a big chunk of it is about aliens from a planet that doesn't even exist (at least to my knowledge). The book made me feel human. I understood something I didn't think I could understand: the experience of another person in a situation completely the opposite to my own.
The characters too, were memorable. When I really think about it, a lot of the characters from this novel are stereotypical in almost every way, yet there is something about them that makes them unique. Edgar Derby, the army section's father figure, is not just a cliché man as one may expect, he's someone I can relate to people in my life, he's someone I believe could be completely real, and I when he died, I felt genuinely sad, even though I knew it was coming. Poor old Edgar Derby. These characters were more than their stereotypes, and honestly, I've thought about why, and I don't know what makes them so special. They just are.
I think my absolute favourite thing about this book though was that sneaky, hidden theme of hope. There was so much destruction, so much hurt, yet there was so much hope. Thinking of Vonnegut as the cynic he was, the hope is kind if funny. It was there though. Every time Billy survived or overcame something, it was there. In the little, pitiful moments, in the cheesy scenes, even in the war, it was there. In the boxcar on the way to the POW camp, Wild Bob, who was dying, still managed to have hope, telling people that if they are ever in Cody, Wyoming, to come see him. It was beautiful, in a way, to have that there. It was what kept me reading. The hope was always there.
I guess that's all. So, thank you, thank you very much Kurt Vonnegut.

Response to Julia's Blog...

I have decided to do a response to Julia's Blog (although I don't think she knows that yet) because when I read through her posts, I found them particularly thought provoking. Here is a link to her blog in case you haven't had the opportunity to read some of her posts: http://night0before0eternity.wordpress.com/
After the book is over: I had the same response to the ending of the novel as a lot of people, including Julia: that's it? I did like the poo-tee-weet ending, I thought it was cute, but it didn't seem like enough. The whole final chapter was just so short and to the point, then I turned the page, and it was over. There was nothing left. Personally, I enjoyed this book and all of its obscurity a lot, but there was something missing here. Vonnegut did say that there was nothing intelligent to say about a massacre, and maybe he just ran out of things to say. I know that happens to me sometimes when I'm writing. I have this flood of ideas and emotions and I just write and write and then I am drained. There is nothing new I can say about it and I just have to end it, whether it seems finished or not. About the point of a happy ending, it would have been nice, but I don't know if it could happen. We all want the happy endings. I get so attached to a character that it breaks my heart when a novel ends, even more so when a novel ends sadly. Sometimes though, there is no way around it. After everything Billy had been through there wasn't much that could be said or done to make it better. As unsatisfying as it was, it had to end because Billy's life was over. He was abused so much on the pages of that novel that I just wanted to let him rest in peace, but sometimes we don't get the endings we want. Probably the biggest disappointment of the novel.
The Children's Crusade: I am not a fan of war in any way. I think that it should be prevented as much as possible, and I know that's not always how it will go, but I wish it would. Young men and women are sent into places which can only be described accurately as some sort of hell, handed weapons and told to fight, to kill, to win. People just a little older than myself are thrown out into this reality that doesn't seem at all real and so many of them die. It's traumatizing, horrifying, unimaginable. And they're just a bit older than I am. It's heartbreaking. I can, in no way, classify myself as someone who has any understanding of this world. I will be 18 in just over a year, and legally I will be called an adult. Legally being an adult doesn't mean you automatically understand or that you can fight any better than you did when you were 17. You can vote, so you must be able to fight for your country. So many of the people who fight are children. Parents lose their children in war. Children lose their parents. People lose their friends, relatives, neighbours. Honestly, no one is old enough for war. No one is ready. No one is ready to march onto a hellish battlefield and shoot to kill other human beings. No one.
Nuggets of Wisdom? HAH: I wrote a post about this a while back, but Vonnegut, in the year 1984, actually did attempt suicide. He had a hard life and that shows through in his writing. I can't imagine some of the things Vonnegut went through, especially after having read SH5. In some of his books, there is an undertone of hope, like this one, but in others, all you can see is cynicism. Sure, he makes it humourous, but when I think about it, it takes a lot of pain to have that much material for cynical jokes. The quote Julia talked about about being alive and feeling nothing, I think, is something Vonnegut probably actually experienced in his life. I'm not saying he used drugs to numb the pain, because I don't think he was like that, I think it was one of those things where there is just so much going on around you that you don't know exactly what you should feel. There is so much pain coming at you from all sides that you just retreat into your mind and let everything hit you, but make sure you don't actually let it hurt you. You hold back the emotions, the tears. You feel like you could just break down and cry, but you start thinking numbers and math (a friend told me about this and it actually works) and you let go of the need to cry (at least until a later time). I think this book is a great example of that fully conscious numbness. There is so much pain, and if Billy felt it all, let it all seep in, it would have taken him over, killed him even.
By the way, Julia, if you're reading this, I really enjoyed your blog. :)

Dresden

From the beginning of the novel it was revealed to the reader that Vonnegut was writing a book about Dresden. He had been there, Billy Pilgrim had been there, and it had all been a big deal. Now, years later, it was something he had to get off his chest, so he was going to write a book about it. It seemed though, when I read this book, that not much was said about Dresden. Every time there was a page or two written about Dresden, Billy would travel somewhere else in time as if to get away from Dresden. If he wanted to write a book on the subject, why keep running away from it? I guess just getting it off his chest was what he needed. I guess sometimes for me it is enough too. Sometimes it's not enough though. Sometimes for the bigger things in life, just saying it out loud isn't enough, is never enough. We know they went to pre-bombing Dresden and it was beautiful. We know they stayed in Slaughterhouse number Five. We know Dresden was firebombed and almost no one survived except Vonnegut and Billy Pilgrim. We know they mined corpses on the moon like surface. About the mustard gas and roses. It was tragic. It was horrible, but that's all we really know. It was enough for Vonnegut though. I guess that had I experienced something of that magnitude in its tragedy, it would probably be enough for me too. And then sometimes it's never enough.

Written on my Grave

"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt" is the phrase Kurt Vonnegut says ought to be inscribed on his grave. Knowing he died in 2007, I am curious as to what is actually inscribed on his headstone. Reading this part of the novel made me wonder what would be written on my grave when I die. How would other people sum up the way I have lived my life? What few words would they use to describe me? What words would I use to sum up my life?
I want the inscription to be something that will reflect the live I lived and the way I chose to live it. I want it to be something more meaningful than my name and a couple of dates. I'm not saying that I want it to be fancy or beautiful, nor that I expect anyone to remember me regardless of the inscription. That's not what I'm saying at all. I just think that I would like to leave something of myself behind, and what better to leave behind than words?
I've thought about it a bit since I finished reading the book, but everything I think of seems cheesy and stupid (not that I expected anything better), but I keep coming back to one theme: hope. Not to steal the message from Vonnegut's gravestone inscription, which, by the way, is one of my favourite novel quotes of all time, but I think the message I want to convey is relatively the same. If I could tell a person one thing I have learned about myself, it would be that I need hope to keep going, and somehow I always find it. I would give up my life before I gave up hope. So, tentatively, this is kind of what I want written on my gravestone when I die: "Even when I was brought to my knees I could look up to find that hope never dies."

Stigma

We look at Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse Five and we can immediately say he suffers from what is commonly known as PTSD, a mental illness. So many of us are quick to judge and say he's 'crazy.' We see all he's experienced and we understand why he would suffer from such an illness, and we sympathize, but we still call him crazy. I'm not saying we're bad people or that we're wrong, but we're only seeing it from one perspective. Billy is mentally ill and he is coping. His coping, to us, looks like lunacy. He talks to aliens and travels in time. It's funny and weird and unfathomable. It's creativity on the part of the writer, but for some people it's reality.
There are a lot of people in Canada and the United States living with mental illness. This is not news to us. Many of us probably know one or more of these people, and we know they're not crazy. They can't change the way things are for them. I have a really close friend who lives with someone suffering with a mental illness. Talking to her, I have learned a lot about what it is to live with someone suffering from mental illness. It is not something that is easy and it takes a lot of patience, which only comes with time. My friend, who has also read this novel, says that there are certain things it has reminded her of, certain experiences she can relate to. Although the person she lives with has a different illness, she understands the stigma and she also understands what Billy has to go through.
The thing she says she notices most though, is the difference in the person. She lived with this person prior to the recognition of symptoms and the diagnosis and she continues to live with this person, and she says that although this person is fundamentally the same, this person has changed in a lot of ways. I think this kind of relates to Billy pre and post war. He was this innocent, frightened young man before he left and he come back so much older and so changed by the war that he could hardly relate to people anymore.
When I've talked to my friend about this book, she says that a lot of the things Billy does, things we would probably judge as crazy, are in fact, things people really do, methods of coping. For different people, they are different, but they are related, and to people who are just seeing these things from the outside, they may seem odd. They probably are odd, but they are how this person gets through.

What I Cannot Change

"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."
This prayer, kept on the wall in Billy's optometry office is something I learned when I was really young. My grandmother gave me a piece of wood with the words inscribed on it and I hung it on my wall. There it sat for quite some time. I read it over a few times, but I never really considered what it meant. I know what it literally meant, but I didn't bother trying to apply it to my own life.
I'm the kind of person who always wants to change things. When something goes wrong, I am the one to fix it. When there is a problem, I have to come up with a solution. I guess it's just the way I've learned to be. There is something I have learned though, and that is that I can't change everything and I can't change other people. Circumstances will not change simply because I want them to, and i have had to accept that, hard as it was. It's not always easy to accept something like that, but  it is unchangeable.
I think this kind of applies to Billy in that he learns to live out these words in his life as the novel progresses.He doesn't question the existence of the Tralfamadorians or their planet (he does, however, question why he was chosen). He understands that things will be as they are. That is something I strive for in my life, to live out the truth of these words. it would be a whole lot easier that way. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...

I HOPE Someday You'll Meet Her.

Hope's the cruelest teacher
Making promises she
Can't keep,
She beats you up
And breaks you down
Until you're on the ground
And all you can do
Is weep.
Hope's the greatest giver
When it's her time to shine,
She'll give you everything
She has
And more, as long as
You promise to believe.
Hope's my greatest friend
And my worst enemy,
It may be cliché
But sometimes she is all
There is to keep me going
In this broken world.
Hope has torn every piece
In my heart to create
One more,
And she has laughed as
I've fallen weakly
And lay crying on the floor.
She's merciless
And priceless,
Rich and she's
Penniless.
Hope is not one
Ever to discriminate,
She doesn't care about
Who you are
Yet she knows every detail.
Hope is what drives me
On a cold morning
To face my reflection,
Hope is what pushes me
Out the door.
Hope is what brings me home
Again at night.
Hope is what sustains me
When I want so badly to
Give up the fight.
Sometimes I hate her
Brutality because it strikes me
Like a whip,
But regardless of how I feel
About her,
I am grateful everyday
For hope.
I would be nowhere without her,
My cruel, lovely teacher.
I hope someday you'll
Meet her and
You'll know just
What I mean.


I think this kind of goes along with the whole hopeful tone of the book, and with the message of "everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt." To me, it's representative of Billy in that there is always something there to give him the strength he needs to get through the day. Billy has seen what hope can do. There are times he has hoped for things and been disappointed, and other times hope has worked for him. That's why I kind of think this goes with the novel.

Dabbling in some fiction

I create a story that’s real to me

And who are you to say

It’s not truth?

I find some solace in my mind

Far from the tragedy

Of this life

And who are you to judge me?

I traveled to a land

In my dreams

Where nothing I see

Is as it seems,

And I found a haven there

Surrounded by a planet fair

So different from

This earthly life.

I found answers for

All my questioning.

It may be strange

To think this way,

To dabble in fiction,

Changing my fate

But if it’s all

Just going to work out anyway,

My question is:

Why not?

Why not make it beautiful?

Why not have some fun?

Instead of killing time,

Just lying around

Staring up at the sun.

You may not believe my story

Because maybe it isn’t real

But in this world

So full of death,

Why not make something more pleasant?