22 nov 2025

This needs a re-read, to me the book almost feels like an intro to itself. I loved it but only after I was halfway. I struggled to follow it up until the point where Vonnegut revealed himself to be a fellow-prisoner, in the same train as Billy. I didn't realize it was partially autobiographic. Then I read the prologue again and that actually really elevated the story for me. I also think that to me in 2025, it reads completely different than it probably did when it was first published in 1969, so I'm trying my best to process it from that perspective, but I think that's almost impossible for us in 2025. I've never experienced war, there wasn't any fear for war when I was growing up, and even now when there is a war a couple of countries over it feels like an abstract concept to me still. So I'm not sure if I'm the right audience for the book, but maybe I am. It's an anti-war book in that it strips war completely of its supposed glory and there are only losers, and the story and the way it's written really confronts you with the absurdity and mostly the futility of it all. Like, it doesn't even directly criticize anything or anyone because it doesn't need to, it just gives you what happens point blank which is enough, I thought that was really powerful.

The time-jumps are sometimes confusing and disjointed but that must be on purpose. It helps that they are mostly the same set of memories, so after a while I got used to them and could pick up where they left off. I think it's sad that he only gets the jumps when he's sleeping, disoriented in the dark, or when people are trying to talk to him about it. As you approach the ending you feel a sort of anxiety building up, or like, you know what's going to happen, kind of like Billy during his jumps. You know what happened in Dresden (or you're one Wikipedia page away from knowing), you know they're going to be moved there eventually and that it's just a matter of time and that it's going to be horrific... at the same time the story gives you more than enough time to reflect on what is going on until you reach that point, and you know it's wrong, you can't really draw any other conclusion. You even know who survives it and who doesn't: not many. His style is a bit staccato for me, but it really fits the stories, this one even moreso than Cat's Cradle. How else can you process this happening to you than completely disassociating from reality and believing you are re-living your life in flashes at the hands of time-travelling aliens? If i think really hard and try to imagine myself as a war prisoner, I think I would also go crazy. The only thing I thought was unrealistic was the Tralfamadorians at the zoo not being able to imagine what time would be like in three dimensions. As three dimensionals we can easily imagine what it's like to be in one dimension or two, but not four. A four dimensional should be able to imagine with clarity what it's like to be in three dimensions in my opinion. But it was a funny bit nonetheless and you could say there's nothing to be found realistic or unrealistic about time travel and aliens anyway.