Time Travel with Vonnegut

Mixing Sci-fi and WWII -- Picture courtesy Delacort Press

by blogSpotter
Today's blog is another entry in my "Boomer Lit" series -- a quick review of Slaughterhouse Five. I never before read this book and was surprised by its content. Slaughterhouse is a Kurt Vonnegut's semi autobiography about an American WWII POW in Dresden, Germany. I'd say that it's set in 1944, except that the unusual premise of the book merges in science fiction and time travel. It's set in 1944, 1967, 1976 and far into the future. It tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, a tall, frail POW and his travails being moved about to different German prison camps. Vonnegut describes Pilgrim as a friend but I think he's basically a representation of Vonnegut himself. The German guards and officers are depicted somewhat humanely and not as stereotypical Nazi police dogs. "Slaughterhouse Five" is the street address of his last prison location -- an old slaughterhouse being used to house prisoners. Vonnegut (who passed away earlier this year) was antiwar and his book served to publicize the inhumanity of the Dresden bombing. In his book he claims 135,000 people died (@ 60K more than Hiroshima) but Wikipedia places the number more at 35,000 -- still a huge number. Toward the end of the book, Vonnegut describes in some detail the horrors of the bombing.

Vonnegut describes Pilgrim as an avid science fiction fan, whose favorite author is Kilgore Trout. Kilgore Trout is another alter ego of Vonnegut himself; I suspect that Vonnegut believed some of the sci-fi scenarios to actually be true. He expressed his "far out" ideas in the guise of science fiction, through the voice of a cheesy sci-fi pulp fiction writer. Here are some of the ideas conveyed:

o A civilization far advanced over us exists -- millions of light years away on the planet Tralfamadore.
o Tralfamadorians can visit us easily using Time Warp.
o Tralfamadorians can also travel through any other time (the 4th dimension).
o Tralfamadorians have actually 7 sexes, although 4 of them can only be seen in the 4th dimension.
o Tralfamadorians know that everyone who has ever lived is actually still alive in some Time segment that can be revisited.

In the book, Billy Pilgrim is actually abducted by the Tralfamadorians for some time and used in a Zoo exhibit of Earthlings. Slaughterhouse never makes it exactly clear whether Pilgrim is mentally ill or if he really has been abducted. One other review I read suggests that the sci-fi events are hallucinations and that Billy suffered injuries that made these happen. Because so much of Billy's time travel mirrors what he read in the Trout novels, you have to suspect he's been strongly influenced by the sci-fi reading.

I must say the book was an interesting read, but I'm left scratching my head. The sections about WWII are very impactful, much as any antiwar book like Diary of Anne Frank or All Quiet on the Western Front. The sci-fi sections which are thoroughly interlaced seem like non-sequiturs but may be seen as a literary device -- showing how our barbarism might come across to a more advanced civilization. As stated above, I can't help but wonder if Vonnegut was a time travel proponent, and Slaughterhouse Five was his way of presenting it to a mass audience. I cannot say that this book has altered my life in any way, or hugely expanded my consciousness. I will say that it's a very quick and interesting read and it will provoke you into thinking about war if not time travel.

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