Page 13 - Digital Cornice Grade 10

He is a reasonably successful optometrist and has an unattractive wife and two children (a
son and a daughter). In addition to telling about Billy’s present life and his war experiences,
his experience of being kidnapped by aliens is chronicled; he is captured, placed in a flying

saucer, and taken to Tralfamadore (the planet he supposedly visits with all the funny-

looking aliens), where Billy is displayed in an extraterrestrial zoo.

During his stay, which is only a few seconds in earth

time, he learns about the Trafalmadorians’ philosophy

of time and reality.
Slaughterhouse-Five makes you wonder whether Billy

is suffering from dementia, some sort of mental
illness or the way he relates to everything and

everybody around him is merely the effect of his post-

traumatic stress disorder, which is never mentioned
throughout the story. Vonnegut keeps true to his

word and gives you a novel that truly does not have a
beginning, a middle, an end or a moral. The truth is,

some of the things that happen to us during a lifetime

are precisely like that: they lack any meaning. It is
human nature to try to find an explanation for things

and the way they happen, but in reality, there might

not be any. By being told out of chronological order,
the structure of the book drives the importance and

impact of the moment rather than just describing

what happens next and it creates a sort of puzzle that
the reader must put together. It is full of satire, wit,

and black humour that is vintage Vonnegut and is one
of the strangest meditations on war and humanity. If

you want an extremely thoughtful book that

challenges your perspective, then I highly recommend
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.

-Arya Jibi

Ghimire