rereading Slaughterhouse-Five (and being called the gestapo 6 years ago)
I have long cited Vonnegut as one of my favorite authors, and long explained to friends and therapists the impact Slaughterhouse-Five had on my view of the world, but in truth, I was a bit of a fake fan. Until last month, I didn't even own a copy of the book and had not read it since I was 16 (? or 17? I don't really know).
You know, it's crazy to admit, but some things are different over a decade later. First of all, war no longer feels like such a distant concept. Not only because my world has expanded beyond the zip code I was born within and the drama of my high school friend group, but also because the wars these days seem much worse - or at least more present - than in those days. America's series of occupations in the Middle East have been horrendous, of course. But we have all spent the last few years feeling hopeless and powerless as a genocide in Palestine continues - funded by the US government. We've watched and worried about Ukraine's defense against Russia. Closer to home, we've feared the police presence in our neighborhoods and tried to protect our neighbors from ICE raids.
I guess before I get too far into the weeds, I should make a few things clear: I have long been told that my style of communication (of teaching, really, since this came from a student) was akin to birdwalking. So I ask some patience and trust as I veer off course:
During the pandemic, I worked as a contact tracer. I'd spend the hours of my shift calling folks that knew they were sick to log their symptoms and people that were scared to hear they'd been exposed. But anytime anyone is in a position that addresses the general public, well... you have to address the general public in all of their varied glory. One person was unhappy to hear from me - not for fear of being sick, but due to the politicization of the global health crisis I was working to contain. He called me an agent of the gestapo. This didn't hurt my feelings or anything, and in fact I remember laughing about it pretty much immediately after hanging up the phone. I don't think about it often anymore, but I certainly haven't forgotten about that exchange.
It came to mind when I was reading Slaughterhouse-Five. The book does a masterful job of circling the drain - of expressing something unable to be expressed with words. So I don't think the word 'gestapo' is anywhere in the text. In fact, I'm not sure Holocaust was mentioned by name either. It strikes me as a bit of a "forgotten doll in a burning city during the hit Disney movie Mulan" kind of moment (that is to say, where the enormity of the horror cannot be expressed in full, and only in small snapshots). For Vonnegut himself, I imagine the firebombing of Dresden was not a small snapshot, even if he reconciled the total dead he reported (125k) with what is now considered a more accurate estimate (25k). In a way, the horrors of war are just as horrible no matter the war; we are simply unable to fathom the depths of the bad in the world, so there’s a point where "more bad" starts having diminishing returns.
Anyway, the gestapo. How flagrantly wrong, of course. But it was representative of something I've noticed more and more each year: the eternal arm wrestle with two sides to label the other side as a Nazi. Let me be completely clear, any actual analysis would lend a remarkably clear answer, but in the game of semantics alone, you'd think it was an even playing field! Why are we so obsessed with invoking imagery from the worst genocide in human history? (As if that sentence itself doesn't answer the question...)
Vonnegut approaches things backwards, essentially. Instead of labeling things as related to WW2, he describes countless seemingly random vignettes - all that are, on a surface level, unrelated to WW2 - and weave them together into a stunning landscape of anti-war literature.
There's something in the perspective of Slaughterhouse-Five that will hold my attention until the cows come home. Having the main character be Billy while the author's perspective in the first person is always present is a decision I'm obsessed with from an artistic perspective. But I wonder if it was a decision made of necessity, instead? That the story itself is too awful that Vonnegut needed that extra bit of distance between himself and the words. But more than that, the entire story is rooted in the perspective of someone reflecting on their time in war while hallucinating from extensive brain damage. Images of aliens keeping humans in a zoo are presented as no more bizarre than descriptions of the oddly jolly demeanor of English prisoners of war. Billy's imagined sexual relationship with a famous movie star is as plausible as his survival in the German countryside.
And - lest I forget to mention it - I fucking hate Billy. The parts of his history outside of the war (or the aliens) that we see are absolutely insufferable: country clubs and rich families and a whole host of the lack of empathy that only comes with unexplored privilege. The vast majority of (presumably) true pieces of information we learn about Billy make me like him less and less. [I bet there are people that find his lack of survival instinct (and propensity to whine) as one of the reasons he is unlikable, but I relate too much to that, so...]
Anyway, all this stacks up to be a weird ass book that a) doesn't make sense, b) barely (if at all) connects to its main theme directly, and c) has an unlikable protagonist. AND YET. Man. It's such a good fucking book.
Vonnegut is one of the only 20th century authors that I actually enjoy to read. If Hemingway/Fitzgerald/Steinbeck are raw lemon juice, at least Vonnegut has the decency to add some sugar and make lemonade. I am a sucker for adverbs and adjectives and enticing sentence structure and strong viewpoints and self-sufficient dialogue and overactive emotional narration. It just makes it more fun! But more than that, the moments that Vonnegut chooses to employ these strategies are so desperately impactful that it's hard to convey accurately.
Take the phrase "mustard gas and roses". First and foremost, what a thrilling way to connect Vonnegut to Billy's story (drunk phone call in chapter 1 vs chapter 4, yada yada, you get it. I'm not the first nor the most qualified to actually analyze this book). But god what a combination. I recognize I am a particularly ✨sensitive✨ reader, but surely I'm not the only one who can literally imagine that? And, in its original context (drunk stinky breath), it's innocuous and relatable enough. So when it's used to describe the literal corpse mines, the fact that there is anything at all that the audience can relate to is, well, horrifying. For the author, I imagine the connection flows the other way. But for the reader, we're plunged headfirst into as-close-as-we-can-get-to-actual understanding of the gruesome scene.
I'm in the process of brainstorming the tattoos I may or may not get some day. And if my various social media bios are anything to go off, "so it goes" will be one of them. In the deepest hazes of depression and the lowest pits of suicidal ideation, the phrase "so it goes" became a lifeline to me. It was so... blasé. In the context of the book, that's because the aliens see the future or whatever. But to me, a Very Sad Teenager™, it was a refreshing response to the world sucking so bad all the time. I was/am so tired of "it will get better" or "you need rain for rainbows" or whatever else there is floating around in the ether. Lord knows I've written plenty of songs on those themes, because that does help, to a point. But it doesn't help. None of it actually helps.
One day, driving through the autumn trees on a backcountry road (on the way to let the dog have a little run-around), I made the discovery that my husband had never felt suicidal in his life. This was absolutely shocking to me - because like, how? At this point, I am relatively familiar with the challenges he has gone through, and not to be dramatic, but I definitely would not have not been suicidal. But then I realized that it actually has kind of nothing to do with anything in the real world, and everything to do with the fact that I am just a brain that fundamentally is suicidal. [It's chill now, and well managed, and under watch by several mental health professionals, so absolutely nobody is allowed to even consider feeling worried because of what I'm writing.] Any you know what actually helps? Moving forward anyway. Shit happens. So it goes, if you will.
So I'll probably get that tattooed someday, which probably makes me a basic bitch. It's not very cool and niche of me to revere one of the best selling books of all time in a little shrine on my skin, I don't think. But as an eternal reminder, maybe it would be nice.