When the clock strikes midnight in Cinderella the magic spell is broken and everything rosy turns to mustard gas. Billy moves from some of the happiest moments of his life (his daughter’s wedding, his honeymoon) and back again to losing his mind as a POW.
I think the Grand Canyon is a lot like a tralfamadorian book: you can see all of its history stacked layer by layer all at once and the great message is: this is beautiful. Billy’s afraid of it because he’s afraid to see his own life so plainly. By becoming unstuck, he doesn’t have to live every horrible moment, one after the other, rather, he can escape to his daughter’s wedding day or his own honeymoon.
But Billy ultimately can’t deal with the transition from war to post-war American suburbia. He did what he thought he should do: get a career, a wife, spawn a good soldier, but he’s not adjusting. Like Rosewater, he can’t seem to find life meaningful. He’s “as happy on tralfamadore”as he was on earth.
Human memory and personal perspective are so fickle and limited. Billy is detached from the events happening in his own life. The Tralfamadorians try to explain there are five sexes, Kilgore Trout explains there are 4D diseases, but Billy is blob in amber or a spectacle in a zoo: things happen to him but he doesn’t have an active role in his own life.
Vonnegut refuses to make war romantic or heroic: Billy’s law of motion via cough and shit, the coat, the scene in the latrines. Edgar derby sounds like the most decent person in the book so far and we know he gets an absurd ending.
“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.” Wow — I’ve always read that line so differently from you. Sure, it’s denial and it’s absurd. Billy (Vonnegut) witnessed the ugliest things imaginable and he suffered for it. But I think it’s a reminder to find beauty and easiness in the face of it. A reminder that you can’t feel happiness without sadness or see good without the bad. It is something Billy needs to learn in order to actually engage with his life — accept the ugliness in order to have the moments of beauty.
Great comparison of the Grand Canyon to a Tralfamadorian book--totally missed that. And you're right, it makes sense that the Grand Canyon frightens Billy because he's afraid to take in his life all at once. His perspective is fragmented by design, to protect him, while the Grand Canyon can only be taken in in its entirety and that's what makes it beautiful and terrifying.
Glad to see you're still tracking on the transition from war to suburbia, too. I think that's one of the most important themes. War changes these men, it makes them alien to human experience. That Billy can experience the trauma of Dresden and then just come home check all the boxes of a suburban dad is absurd--and that's exactly why he can't do it.
Love that you had such a different reading of that line from me, that's exactly what the discussion is for! I think both of our interpretations have merit. One the one hand I do think there's a strong current of denial and nihilism running through the book that informed my interpretation, the sort-of perpetual "looking away" that Billy and others succumb too. But I think ultimately Vonnegut is working against that and will come to your conclusion. The Grand Canyon is one example, as is the Tralfamadorian perspective on time as the Rocky Mountains. None of these things would be beautiful without contrast, without depth, without absence.
When the clock strikes midnight in Cinderella the magic spell is broken and everything rosy turns to mustard gas. Billy moves from some of the happiest moments of his life (his daughter’s wedding, his honeymoon) and back again to losing his mind as a POW.
I think the Grand Canyon is a lot like a tralfamadorian book: you can see all of its history stacked layer by layer all at once and the great message is: this is beautiful. Billy’s afraid of it because he’s afraid to see his own life so plainly. By becoming unstuck, he doesn’t have to live every horrible moment, one after the other, rather, he can escape to his daughter’s wedding day or his own honeymoon.
But Billy ultimately can’t deal with the transition from war to post-war American suburbia. He did what he thought he should do: get a career, a wife, spawn a good soldier, but he’s not adjusting. Like Rosewater, he can’t seem to find life meaningful. He’s “as happy on tralfamadore”as he was on earth.
Human memory and personal perspective are so fickle and limited. Billy is detached from the events happening in his own life. The Tralfamadorians try to explain there are five sexes, Kilgore Trout explains there are 4D diseases, but Billy is blob in amber or a spectacle in a zoo: things happen to him but he doesn’t have an active role in his own life.
Vonnegut refuses to make war romantic or heroic: Billy’s law of motion via cough and shit, the coat, the scene in the latrines. Edgar derby sounds like the most decent person in the book so far and we know he gets an absurd ending.
“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.” Wow — I’ve always read that line so differently from you. Sure, it’s denial and it’s absurd. Billy (Vonnegut) witnessed the ugliest things imaginable and he suffered for it. But I think it’s a reminder to find beauty and easiness in the face of it. A reminder that you can’t feel happiness without sadness or see good without the bad. It is something Billy needs to learn in order to actually engage with his life — accept the ugliness in order to have the moments of beauty.
Great comparison of the Grand Canyon to a Tralfamadorian book--totally missed that. And you're right, it makes sense that the Grand Canyon frightens Billy because he's afraid to take in his life all at once. His perspective is fragmented by design, to protect him, while the Grand Canyon can only be taken in in its entirety and that's what makes it beautiful and terrifying.
Glad to see you're still tracking on the transition from war to suburbia, too. I think that's one of the most important themes. War changes these men, it makes them alien to human experience. That Billy can experience the trauma of Dresden and then just come home check all the boxes of a suburban dad is absurd--and that's exactly why he can't do it.
Love that you had such a different reading of that line from me, that's exactly what the discussion is for! I think both of our interpretations have merit. One the one hand I do think there's a strong current of denial and nihilism running through the book that informed my interpretation, the sort-of perpetual "looking away" that Billy and others succumb too. But I think ultimately Vonnegut is working against that and will come to your conclusion. The Grand Canyon is one example, as is the Tralfamadorian perspective on time as the Rocky Mountains. None of these things would be beautiful without contrast, without depth, without absence.