vonnegut in billy

In reading the novel Slaughterhouse-five, I couldnt help but feel that Billy was Vonnegut even though he interjects himself into the story at times, saying that he was that soldier who did certain things. I felt as though Vonnegut was Billy, he had written himself into this alternate world as a way to help him look back at the past, but to not become stuck there. Billy was unstuck in time and jumped from future to present to past, and so Vonnegut in creating Billy and giving him this ability in a sense gave himself the same ability. There are also many correlations between Vonnegut and Billy throughout the novel. Such as them both using the non-fiction novel to deal with the trauma that they experienced in the war. Not only do they use the science fiction novel but they both create their own alternate realities. It could be said that the book is Vonneguts alternate reality, and for Billy, his is Tralfamadore. Vonnegut and Billy also have trouble talking about the war, and remembering things about the war. Vonnegut himself says that when he sat down to write the book he had trouble remembering events that occurred. Billy himself after the war doesn't talk about it and avoids it in conversation when his wife Valencia asks him about it. The similarities between the two are daunting and really jump out to the reader. This causes the novel to have a somewhat autobiographical affect even though it is clearly fiction.

Mumbo Jumbo overview

After reading the novel I realized, that I liked the book even less after it was over. I really did dislike the book. I don't think that it was just too much of a confusing book to read and to comprehend, I think that it had more to do with the content. The only thing that I did like about the book was the back story behind the text. i liked how reed could bring in the Egyptian mythology and add his own spin to it, but still make it comprehensible and understandable. The rest of the book I could really have done without. Hinckle Von Vampton and the search for the text was all just uninteresting to me. I understood the Mu'tafika and their goals to return the "stolen" artifacts but it all seemed to not be very productive. I think Reed in writing such a novel to speak out against the oppression of Western Civilization, it was not as productive as it should have been. Reed got his point across as we discussed in class but you have to dig through so many layers to get to it. I think that the novel would have been better had Reed just said what he needed to say. There could still be a story line and a plot, it could all even have the same setting, it just could benefit from less of the confusing, abstract speech.