A Sad Goodbye

So yeah, we've reached the end of the book. Now everything is clear yet not satisfying enough, I wish there would be another event one that would give a twist to the book makes it unpredictable. The biggest shame I encountered when finishing the book was the fact that Trafalmadorians were a complete lie. Well seriously I never expected for alien like green things to exist for real, yet their ideals their way of thinking was so complete. Maybe I’m envious of that perfect civilization, but it also seems kinnda cool to see ourselves heading to our Pre-Ap English class, all green looking, but most of all having the approach Trafalmadorians had towards life. So relaxing, no stress felt.

Throughout the book millions of questions emerged, in a book you would normally expect for them to be answered at the end pretty clearly. Yet when reaching the last pages of the books I had even more questions that I had ever imagined and none seemed to be reaching a reasonable answer. Made me wonder if I was just confusing myself with the text, which led me to reading it over again. Finding myself with the correct understanding of the text, switched my view of the book. We are never intended to now if Billy is really Kurt? Are the events of this book real?

Those questions act like hooks to keep us engaged in the reading. They drill Vonnegut’s (or Billy’s not really sure) ideals into our mind, make us reflect on it. The whole complexity and weird stories helps the author clarify his ideals and as well ensure him that we as readers will never forget it. I bet everybody will always remember the Trafalmadorians. Or hearing a “So It Goes” will ring a bell. Those horrible stories from Dresden and the war will always bring us back to the book. Refresh our minds upon the view of our world and what the author’s ideas, which he so hardly tried to explain through the book, we will never forget.

While reading through my blogs and mostly everybody’s blogs, prior to the last big one on the end of the book, we were always trying to find a moral message hidden in the book like we made it way to princessy and fairytale like. Looked for things that really did not matter. At the end we can only appreciate what Vonnegut told us in this book, we cannot infer what happened next and why some detail were left out of it, he constructed it that way for a reason. Made up of words and sentences he told us his experience of war, only one point of view of the many out there. Yet a shocking one.

Striped Pyjamas

After having trouble trying to find Roberto’s blog and his entries. I found myself reading an interesting idea. Leaving a part the redundancy of the blog and the repetition of concepts, the main idea of a blog he titled “Making Friends” was controversial.

The relationship between Billy and Elliot, demonstrates how complicated it would be to live in a concentration camp. The complications that tag along when having to live with people you have never met and worst of all in those conditions one experiences in a concentration camp. It came to my mind the movie The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. In the movie a Jewish boy who is send to a concentration camp, has the honor of meeting the son of the Nazi general who is in charge of the camp. They are able to create a very strong bond even though they were from to totally different backgrounds. What makes this movie so special is that the Nazi kid goes inside the camp, in search of his Jewish friend’s parent at the both end up gassed in a chamber. They were only two kids fighting a grown-up war yet they both end up dead while doing simple kid stuff.

Relating it back to Roberto’s blog about friendship in hard times, we can say that people when exposed to complicated situations are able to give the most of them. When living in you comfort zone everything is always all right. No problems arise and life is simple. Yet you can only get to know a person in those complicated situations, and only then is when you can see the real person, the person behind every comfort zone.

Friendships end, but relationships created in tough times are the ones that overcome the worst and therefore will last the longest.

Social Awkwardness

Billy’s lack of self-control result on him having to pay a visit to the mental hospital, yet he was not a visitor but as an intern. Not a very good welcoming well he was tied down to the bed. After receiving a little present called morphine, Billy falls under the influence of this drug. Led into a world of kissing giraffes and savory pears.

Vonnegut ironically uses the morphine to make Billy, a character we already know is crazy, crazier. Billy feels welcomed by the giraffes and does not feel excluded by them. Ironically his feeling toward society, and society’s feelings towards him are opposite to those of the giraffes. He feels neglected in society, an outcast of it.

Seems to me Trafalmadorians and giraffes have parallel feelings for Billy.

In Billy’s dream the Trafalmadorians are being represented as the giraffes. It is almost as if the morphine was the passage into the Trafalmadorian world, the key into entering those ideals hidden in Billy’s mind. Only one pair of giraffes felt extremely affectionate towards Billy. With out his morphine high, in reality, he had never felt affection. He was the outcast.

Which leads me to my second connection. As we know Billy was not the most loved child. I believe the pair of giraffes are representing Mom and Dad. Billy is seeking childhood memories and remorse on his morphine trip. The sorrows of the past are being explained in his subconscious, like Nietzsche said. The giraffes are showing interest, he is feeling all the love he has never felt in reality.

Billy finds a home, a support on Trafalmadorians

and well yeah giraffes, soial awkward (like our friend lina).

War, War, War!

“The British had no way of knowing it, but the candles and the soap were made from the fat of rendered Jews and Gypsies and fairies and communists, and other enemies of the State. So it goes”

The Americans and British gentleman will ironically be burning those who they’ve pleaded to save, as well as fought for in war. Upon this being a sadist thought, the irony is more than obvious. War can be fought trying to tumble others ideals and trying to reach a better end, still war is war and some good deeds you do throughout it will not justify the massacre and the blood spilled.

The end does not justify the means.

War does not seem appealing. Why would someone join war to fight for one’s rights, when fighting you are breaking many more? Yet leaders have their ways around society, marketing

war is a great part of the business. “Englishmen…They made war look stylish and reasonable, and fun.” Propaganda was a great

Remembering back to the first chapter of the book when Marie O’Hare says something about women and kids were left alone while men go to war. Both women and kids were as well vital pieces of the war. When men were away the labor had to be done by someone else. Women desperately seeking to send munitions to their men and sons in the battle field would become the guinea pigs of the war. Working under extreme conditions, everybody became the war. The world was at war, no one could escape it. part of World War II countries would make war seem entertaining and if they completed their goal it would feel you were fighting for a reasonable cause. Recruit young, healthy solders will take more than giving war a beautiful perspective. Yet portray war as a stylish game, raising your sex appeal, and crowds of young single males will rush into the battle field. Slogans and posters would motivate kids, because most of them were only kids to join the war.

Insane

"Billy Pilgrim says that the Universe does not look like a lot of bright little dots to the creatures form Trafalmadore. The creatures can see where each star has been and where it is going...And Trafalmadoriaans don't see human beings as two-legged creatures, either"

We Trafalmadorians are perceived as creatures of another world. Yet Billy makes us seem normal, is he the only human being not blinded by society's ego?


This leads us Trafalmadorians to wonder:

Are humans the sane?


We look at humans and they seem inferior. You earthlings have taught yourselves into believing that you are the best species ever created. Hahaha stupid human society. If your society was so perfect no wars would be fought, plus you view your world in three dimensions, pretty old-school if you ask me. Developed creatures live in a perfectly stable society.

I am not stating we are perfect, because we are conscious that we are not alone in this world. We have grown upon that thought, leaving the moment. We are here right now, in this moment just because it is this way and no way else. Leaving that huge ego of yours, you earthlings should seriously consider the fact that you are not perfect and never will be so if you keep on mingling with that superiority of yours. Consider for a second your efficient democratic system. First of all aren't y'all self sufficient? Why do you need someone to govern you? You are pretty contradictory. Keep on buying new technology, people are starving of hunger.

We Trafalmadorians have been able to remove Billy’s blindfold. Shown him what a real society is based upon. What will it take for all the blindfolds to start falling off?

Rewind It. Is it Worth Watching?

Read something forward. Read something backwards. Yes it is an order, do it right now! Got different meanings from the same text?

Billy Pilgrim thought the same way about war. Watch war from the beginning till end it will seem as a bloody heroism, exposing millions of clashes and hatred from one side towards the other. But review war the other way it will seem as Billy said like this "the minerals (from the bombs) were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again". This portrays not only Billy's but as well Vonnegut's feelings about war. That useless conflict that kills millions, and finally no one ends up winning.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button felt quite similar to Billy's interpretation of war. While in the movie it shows us how a human life is lived backwards and only then we are able to see how carelessly we carry through are lives when at the end being babies we are merely nothing.

War has the same dilemma only when watched backwards you understand how many people are affected by it. As well you are able to understand the atrocities it can create.

Life should be lived forward.

But watch your life backwards.

Is it worth it?

And so it goes.

In God We Trust

I have been keeping up lately with my reading on Slaughterhouse Five, to find myself reading a puzzle of ideas and situations in chapter three. Vonnegut, the author of the novel, manages to mix and match events of the past and future with the actual moment in the book. Even though you would expect for it to be a mess of ideas and a revolt of thoughts, the writer keeps astonishing us with his capacity to convey so much in such a clear state.

I could not keep on reading without having to note the fact that Roland Weary had a bulletproof bible. This is not because of the irony of his personality which reflects the complete opposite of that of having a bible (well it kind of is), but it shocked me even more when remembering the story of Pope John Paul the Second. He was one walking through the Saint Peter’s Square when he was shot. The bullet missed his heart and instead hit a medal of the virgin he was wearing around his neck that day, which remarkably saved his life. The bulletproof bible that Weary had in the inside of his jacket accomplished the same purpose, yet we are never told if it saved his life or it did not.

I had never heard of such thing as a bulletproof bible, yet I wonder if it ever saved someone’s life at the battle field.

In God we will always trust.

Defy Society

What a brilliant mate Vonnegut is.

Once again criticizing society and its taboos.

He might be arising some fury in society.

While reading the second chapter of “Slaughterhouse Five” I noticed a close resemblance with a Spanish book I read couple of months ago. “Opio en las Nubes” written by Rafael Chaparro felt so similar. It was not the content of the books that related but the authors’ style of writing. They seem to be writing carelessly, sloppy and repeating words, yet they could convey so much by doing so. The wording is so simple, the ideas so clear but still the words match so eloquently. It is hard to explain these books.

In some sense the books do relate in their content. Billy the main character of “Slaughterhouse Five” is considered a maniac by society. Well, who would not consider someone that when they insist on the existence of aliens and a land called Trafalmadore. Both main characters are out of ordinary society parameters, which links back to the way the authors write, out of verse freely without rules. Kurt Vonnegut as well as Rafael Chaparro could care less what critics have to say about their books. They are exposing every flaw of society and criticizing stereotypes. Imposing their own rules.

Billy mentions that one thing he learned from his visit to this new land, Trafalmadore, was that if a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past. He insists that there is no need to mourn your loved, they taught you things in the past and marked your lives in those moments. They are able to live forever after death. Which at first the idea of dying as society has showed us is devastating and horrid. Still if you look at things the way Billy illustrates us, death is not that horrid. The essence of the one that has gone and what you were able to appreciate from him while he was alive is worth much more.

The Past Echoes In The Future

I have begun to read the novel Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. In it the horridness of war are not only expressed but neglected. Mary O'Hare to whom the book is dedicated to, is introduced as a character by stating the following quote: "You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more if them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs".

Two things impacted me from the quote above. Yes do not fool yourself everybody enjoys a good looking guy in a movie full of action and conflict, yet as Mrs. O'Hare states it glorifies war. Movies are the best way to create propaganda for war, then let kids watch them and you have just created marvelous soldiers full of adrenaline to someday be like those made up generals like Sinatra, brilliant Hollywood.

Then we have babies fighting wars. Kids with their life half lived ended in a war that is not even theirs, millions of innocent people dying in terrorist attacks. Today is a day in which we can reflect the atrocities a war can create; ten years ago the world’s strongest nation suffered a terrorist attack that can never be forgotten. Reading this book noticing the suffering of a mother knowing that only time is keeping her family a whole, I was able to relate to the feeling the entire world is going through today. War is unpredictable and when it strikes, what comes is only worst.

Like the war Americans fought for September 11.

Remember 9-11.

"The Perfect Life" By: John Koethe

It feels like watching all over again the still painting we saw in class “Vanitas” living again the concept of perfection and beauty; all which seem so clear to everybody, easy to explain and just another adjective. The poem “The Perfect Life” by John Koethe demonstrated how perfection is a matter of perception. His life seems plain, not at all interesting just a steady line of monotonous living. Nothing he can do to change it, just be comforted by the fact that only few are the people that do not feel his way, that have decided to step out of the routine.

With time you finally understand how little you have accomplished in life and what once felt like merits now seems to be just another meaningless event. You wasted your valuable time reaching the bar of perfection. But..

Was it you who set the bar?

Did you chose where and what to aim for?

It no longer appears to be your goals that you were pursuing, you were wrapped into society’s idea of perfection. What can be more wonderful and extravagant to have a life full of happiness and articles that fill you with joy, but if at the end "what seems beautiful and strong becomes an object of indifference."

Does anything ever matter?

Dante's Poetic Justice

Canto XX

Dante and Virgil reside within the eight circle of hell, in its fourth pouch. In this pit they are able to see those who in the upper world were considered Diviners, Astrologers and Magicians. This lie in this whole because “since he wanted to see ahead, he looks behind and walks a backward path”, Dante is talking about all of the creatures that in here are punished to walk backwards, this because their heads have been turned backwards. As poetic justice is defined by the old proverb “what goes around, comes around” it is exemplified in this canto by the punishment.

The Magicians, Diviners and Astrologers used magic and their power on earth, to look further upon what God had given them at the moment, wanting to look at the future and alter it before it ever got to them; defying God’s power to control your life and living life one step at a time. They were punished to look backwards and unable to look forward anymore. Which goes back to the old proverb which defines poetic justice, because they wanted to look forward while on earth now they have to look backwards in hell.