Poo-tee-weet?

Before I began reading Slaughterhouse-Five I turned to the last page and read the books last few words. "Poo-tee-weet?" Curiosity I guess triggered my body into wanting to know how the novel ended. It's funny; how people engage themselves in a war fully conscious of how its going to play itself out; knowing that sooner or later it will all come to an end. Life is funny that way. I recently broke up with my boyfriend. He cheated on me. I entered the relationship knowing that I wasn't going to marry him, he wasn't going to be the father of my children, and as anything good in life, it would eventually come to an end. Yet I still wanted to go for it. Desire and hope that it would all turn out well made me do it I guess. 

Spring had come and the Germans had left. The war was finally over. "Billy and the rest wandered out onto the shady street. The trees were leafing out. There was nothing going on out there, no traffic of any kind." Life after the war was dead. There was no life. Dead bodies, bombed buildings, and debris decorated Dresden's landscape. One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, "Poo-tee-weet?" 

At the beginning of the novel, Kurt Vonnegut, who is serving as the narrator, addresses his publisher Seymour Lawrence and apologizes for delivering such a short, fragmented manuscript. He says that in fact there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Once it is over, everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be quiet after a massacre, and it always is except for the birds. 

After finishing the book I asked myself, "why?" Why waste your time writing a book if a war is as insignificant as the tweet of a bird. Why did I get myself in a relationship knowing from the start what was to come of it? I came to the conclusion that there really is no answer. Having the novel end in "Poo-tee-weet?" brings me an empty closure. Why? I really don't know. Life is funny that way I guess. 

War and love are like a small paper cut. It cuts only the surface yet bleeds as if it had stabbed your heart. You cry at first. But eventually it stops bleeding. The pain stops slowly after; and the cut begins to heal. Getting better each day, until it is almost invisible. Yet the scar is still there. There is nothing more left to do except wait. You wait to eventually cut yourself again and start all over. I guess we are addicted. We are insane. We are "unstuck". 

I Felt It Change Me.

The Departed is a 2006 American crime thriller directed by Martin Scorsese about a boy who is introduced to organized crime at a young age through an Irish mobster named Frank Costello. Frank dedicates his life to training this boy who eventually becomes a police officer and serves as his mole inside the Massachusetts State Police: Special Investigations Unit. At the same time, Billy Costigan, a man who was training to become a police officer, is hired by the the chief of the Special Investigations Unit to drop out of the Police Academy, do time in prison for an assault, gain credibility, and make it into Costello's internal "click" to serve as an undercover informant. Eventually both teams find out that there is a leak in their unit and the movie becomes a battle to discover each others "rats."

You might be asking yourself how this ties into Slaughterhouse-Five. Well due to the fact that Costigan remains on probation once he is sent free from jail, he is forced to meet with psychiatrist Madolyn Madden on a weekly bases. Costigan begins his undercover job as what seems to be an ordinary person. He then passes through a depressive stage in which he becomes overwhelmed of the massive murders which go on in his daily life as a worker of Costello and attempts to commit suicide. As the movie progresses though, one is able to see how Costigan has gone from being a average man with sentiments, to an insensitive person who has become immune to violence. 

"You sit there with a mass murderer, your heart rate is jacked. Yet your hand is steady. Thats something I noticed about myself, my hand now is always steady." - Billy Costigan

This made me think of war and its victims. Maybe Billy Pilgrim isn't as insane as one sees him. At first soldiers are just average people who sign up with hopes of serving, bettering, and bringing justice to their country. Once soldiers have been summated to the carnage and experience wars crude reality, they come back nothing but collateral damage. Putting aside ones physiological state, where depression, personality disorders, and the posttraumatic stress kicks in, once the war is over what do they do? The war has become their routine. Their life. It consumes them and there is no turning back. We are addicted. 

Mad Men

As the novel progresses, we meet Kilgore Trout: a bitter, dark humored, failed science fiction author in his mid sixties, who lives in a rented basement about two miles from Billy's "nice white house." 

Billy became a fan of Trout after having read multiples books of his. One thing that triggered me, was the fact that all of Billy's theories: the alien kidnapping and the concept of time relativity, all came from Kilgore Trout's novels. This meant that these books had been feeding to Billy's fantasies. Billy had built his reality around these novels, in which he took memories from events that marked his life (the bombing of Dresden) and the items he used to cope with the post-traumatic stress disorder (Trout's novels) to create his own deceptive reality.

Similar to Vonnegut, Kilgore Trout is a very crude humored man. At Billy's 18th wedding anniversary celebration, Maggie White becomes fascinated with Trout and begins bombarding him with questions of his works. After the woman asks what his most famous novel was about, Trout sarcastically answeres: "All the great chefs in the world were there. Its a beautiful ceremony. Just before the casket is closed, the mourners sprinkle parsley and paprika on the deceased." 

Trout reminded me of my grandfather: a witty, dark humored man who also happens to be in his mid sixties. He is the owner of an animal food making business. I remembered he once told me that he already placed in his will, that the day he dies, he would like to be cremated and have his ashes placed in the food mixer so that a limited extra protein edition can be sent out into the market. 

"If we weren't all crazy we would go insane." - Jimmy Buffett

The Undertakers Thirst of Revenge

World War II was an earth shattering event that left long lasting collateral damage, even 20 years after. How does one pick up the pieces after such an event? Some feel the need for justice, revenge, others for forgiveness, and the list of possibilities goes on. 

Several high-ranking German officers and officials were accused of multiple crimes following the wars culmination. These series of military tribunals are known as the Nuremberg Trials. 

Yet this type of bittersweet revenge is ok. Why? Regardless of the circumstance, murder as a justification is still murder. So up to what point is revenge the only necessary measure that it can be justified as a represented act of sanity?

After spending a night on morphine, Billy Pilgrim wakes up and with him are Edgar Derby and Paul Lazzaro. Lazzaro talks about how he plans on having the English officer who beat him up killed after the war. The sweetest thing in life, he claims, is revenge. He says that one time he fed a dog that had bitten him a steak filled with sharp pieces of metal and watched it die in fascination.  

This small excerpt absolutely startled me. I believe it is because I am undeniably triggered by human nature and how it manifests itself when emotions such as jealousy, lust, and revenge come into play. 

"Justice is divine in nature. But condemning people is devilish. If we condemn, then we are condemned." (Matthew 7)

The Persistance of Memory

Time. We have all grown up learning that time is that constant factor by which our entire lives revolve around. Our world resorts around this term of existance. One in which we follow a progressive notion of time, proceeding from past to present to future. Us humans, have managed to bind our lives to this concept, creating almost a time line in which one can only move forward, not back. 

But what if all that was purely a delusional state of mind. A misconception of reality? When do these two worlds intertwine? Or are we simply living in a fixed stage?

"All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is." Slaughterhouse-Five (Chapter 4, page 86)

Billy Pilgrim's Life Trajectory Till Chapter 5

1922- Born, Ilium, NY (Pg. 23)

1930- Trip to Santa Fe (Pg. 39)

1939- Graduated from Ilium High School (Pg. 23)

1943- Captured by Germans (Pg. 55)

1944- First time Billy became "unstuck in time" (Pg. 30)

1944- Went to Germany. Last German attack (Pg. 32)

1945- Honorably Discharged from the War (Pg. 24)

1957- Elected president of the Lion’s Club (Pg. 49-50)

1958- Banquet of Honor of the Little League Team

1961- New Years Optometrist Party (cheated on wife) (Pg. 46)

1965- Visits Mother in Retirement Home ----> Mother Dies (Pg. 44)

1967- Captured by Tralfamadorians (Pg. 25)

1968- Survives Plane Crash (Pg. 25)

So it goes...

"Death is terrifying because it is so ordinary. It happens all the time." - Susan Cheever, American author, 1943

If one thing seems certain in life, it is that eventually we will die. We all strive desperately to put off that final day for as long as possible, but our efforts to cheat death are insufficient. In my fifteen years of living, I have never stared death in the face. I have always tried to avoid it and keep it as distant from me as possible because of the fear of being "let go." 

As I read the second chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five I noticed that death does not discriminate. Whether rich, young, old or poor, there will come a day when death starts knocking at your door and you will have no option but to let it in. Billy's wife for example, dies of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning on her way to visiting her husband in the hospital after the plane crash. Billy's father died in a hunting accident right before his ship overseas for combat. 

Overall there is not much more to say regarding death except to beware and enjoy because "so it goes." 

Addicted to War

War. What is war? According to Websters Dictionary, it is a state of organized, armed and prolonged conflict between states, nations, and or other parties. It is a defining part of human nature that has grown with society and will never leave us. Yet it is among the most popular topics to critique. Writing an anti-war novel, would prevent war as effectively as writing a book about glaciers would prevent their motion. So why do it? 

This question struck me as I began reading Slaughterhouse-Five, a novel in which the author embeds an actual, external presence within the text, from where he narrates the story of a Word War II veteran who survived the firebombing of Dresden, and is now an aging husband and father who has been for the past years struggling to find a way to write a book about the events that transpired during the war. Claiming to have "come unstuck in time," the events of the novel are narrated in a cyclical manner rather than a linear one as is done in most novels. Flashbacks of the war, along with the decision on weather to write a condemnation of it or glorify war instead, and produce an epic rather than a representation of reality where the basic themes that predominated this first chapter. 

9/11 Loose Change

The Perfect Life by John Koethe

"I have a perfect life. It isn’t much, but it’s enough for me." Its with these words, that American poet and essayist John Koethe begins his piece, depicting the simple yet sufficient young stage in which a human begins his/her life. A place where the present is satisfactory, and nothing more or less is asked for; some people can even say this is a happy place. As one grows older though, aspirations begin to surge, changes begin to occur, and by the time one reaches the bittersweet climax of life, they have come to realize that one is now to old to pursue the dreams they put on hold for so long, resulting in a sudden lost of hope. A place where one is left alone in an empty room, reminiscing about what had been and what will become of this "perfect life."