Slaughterhouse-Five 2 (Quarter 3)

            I decided to continue reading Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. In this section of the book, the readers are introduced to the Tralfamadorians, an alien race that abducts Billy. They teach him about time’s relation to the world, which can also be understood as the fourth dimension. These aliens describe time as looking at a mountain range because they can see all of it simultaneously. One interesting part of the story is when Billy asks if the people of Tralfamadore fear the humans or deem them unwise due to the horrible wars on earth. The Tralfamadorians reply that even an advanced civilization like theirs has had excessive amounts of violence. Billy also inquires whether or not the universe is destroyed by violence. It is revealed to him that, in fact, a Tralfamadorian test pilot experimenting with a new kind of fuel creates an explosion that wipes out everything in existence. There was an allusion in this part of the book to a novel called Valley of the Dolls, by Jacqueline Susann. The plot has to do with maltreatment of women and substance abuse. Even after looking it up, I am not sure why Vonnegut chose this exact book to include, but I believe that there must have been a good reason. He then compares it to Tralfamadorian novels that have small clumps of words that represent events. All of the words are meant to be read at the same time to produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. Slaughterhouse-Five is definitely becoming more interesting to read. I am looking forward to finishing it.