Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Pilgrim and David Irving: Tralfamadorians in Training

Abstract

Where Billy Pilgrim begins, Kurt Vonnegut ends and this is where David Irving intrudes for good measure. However this is what makes the post-modern interpretation of this book so interesting (at least to this author). Certainly, an all pervading odor of fatalism and cynicism colors the work and one can certainly not blame Vonnegut for this. A veteran of any war goes off to the conflict a boy and comes back an old man. All of the moments that they were in combat, captivity or any other aspect of their military service colors their perception of the world. In this postmodern classic, the difference between real and the non-real is not clear cut. Vonnegut keeps us guessing as to what is real in all dimensions, including time and space.

After all, how many of us would view the world differently from the subterranean vault of a meat locker like Slaughterhouse Five? In the very real world, human flesh is burning and the holocaust offered to the god of war eats at the conscience of the young soldier. After all, he asks himself a basic question of war, "why did I survive?" Many of his buddies died in the Battle of the Bulge. Many more of his fellow human beings were incinerated in the hellish kiln of Dresden