Slaughterhouse - Five Reading Blog: Chapters 9 and 10

I really liked the end of the book, even though it was kind of strange (well I suppose the whole novel is a bit strange), it was very entertaining. Chapter 9 begins with the death of Billy's wife, Valencia. When it happened Billy was unconscious because of the plane wreck, but when he found out hours later, he wasn't upset, just the usual "so it goes." One thing that did disappoint me about the last two chapters of the novel, was the lack of information on Montana Wildhack. I guess I was just expecting a bigger influence of her on Billy. While in the hospital in Vermont, Billy was constantly going unstuck in time, traveling to Trafalmadore, then to when he was a young teenager, etc.

An interesting moment in the 9th chapter is when Vonnegut describes how Robert, Billy's son, had changed during his life. I believe this is very meaningful to the novel, and creates a new theme in the book. That of changes in life. Billy himself changed a lot once he discovered new points of view from the Trafalmadorians, especially regarding death. He also changed a lot after the war, as we saw during the last chapter when he got so nervous when he saw the quartet singers.

Another interesting part regards the new character introduced in this chapter, Professor Rumfoord. Rumfoord is constantly talking badly about Billy, thinking he is not listening even though he was. In one of these moments he mentions his thoughts to Lily, Billy's daughter. He thinks they should just let Billy die, because he thinks he has no brain and useless people aren't needed. In his own words the Professor said: "That's not a human being anymore. Doctors are for human beings. They should turn him over to a veterinarian or a tree surgeon. They'd know what to do. Look at him! That's life according to the medical profession.  Isn't life wonderful?" I think this is very important because Billy is never affected by death, he just let's deaths go, and in this case that's what is being done to him. 

I also found the fact that Billy cried about the horses very impressive. I couldn't believe that he didn't cry in the hanging of the polish, or the bombing of Dresden, or as a prisoner of war, but he did cry when he saw the circumstance in which the horses where in. I think that he cried here because he noticed that everything was so wrong and so messed up, that even the horses were dying. I also think he cried because he realized that he and his country were the ones doing all this, not only hurting the horses, but killing so many people and destroying so many cities. This also shows Vonnegut's interest with animals, in Slaughterhouse - Five he mentioned horses and dogs.

The last chapter is very similar to the first chapter. I believe Vonnegut includes himself a lot more in the first and last chapter than in all the others. He mentions his story as well as Billy Pilgrim's life. He revives the moments in which he was with Billy Pilgrim and O'Hare in the slaughterhouse as well as when he goes back to visit the new city of Dresden. One of the coolest moments, is at the very end of the book when Billy and the fellow Americans are allowed to leave the slaughterhouse. The war is over and everything seems renewed, calm and peaceful. "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. There was only one vehicle, an abandoned wagon drawn by two horses." (pg. 215)

The article about Kurt Vonnegut and Slaughterhouse - Five was very interesting. The writer, once again, returns 'the favor' Vonnegut had against everyone else. This is a writing about Vonnegut's death and the words used by Lev Grossman to describe this incident are precisely 'so it goes'. Therefore I can link it to the moment in the book with Professor Rumfoord. In this article the author also mentions that Billy experiences his birth and death in random orders. This specific phrase reminds me of a book called "La Muerte de Artemio Cruz", this book tells the story of the whole process of Artemio's death. In the very last chapter he experiences his birth in a very real manner. It's not time traveling, he is just remembering, but it's so real that it reminds me of Billy's going unstuck in time.