Handbook of Epictetus - Sections 16-30

These sections of the Handbook go into more practical aspects of life than the previous sections. We see how to apply what the first 15 sections taught us in real life, for example how to act when someone is weeping at a loss. "Do not hesitate, however, to sympathize with him verbally, and even moan with him if the occasion arise; but be careful not to moan inwardly (sec 16)." Despite being an event where you act with the people around you, the reader is urged to maintain a proper state of mind during the moment of great vulnerability. It has happened to me often that when I empathize with someone, their grief or anger is passed unto me, this is what Epictetus tells us to avoid at all costs.

In Section 17, Epictetus tells the reader an interesting thing, "What is yours is to play the assigned part well. But to choose it belongs to someone else (sec. 17)." We cannot choose our fate? We are destined to be whatever others want us to be or a superior force? This is extremely distubring to me as I'm used to the idea that I can choose what I want to be in life, or is this idea wrong and whatever I choose to be was already determined to happen?Somehow this reminds me of 1984 with someone or something apparently watching me and telling me what to do as Big Brother did in the book.

Despite this, the book also has some common thoughts, such as picking your fights. "You can be invincible if you do not enter any contest in which victory is not up to you (sec 19)." This is true because if you know your limits and analyze situations, you can avoid any event in which you can be defeated. What about events beyond your control such as a robbery or an unprovoked attack? If victory is not entirely up to you what do you do? You fight? You surrender? What happens in stoic philosophy when others attack you?

Theres is a couple of points I do not understand, what is wrong with trying to please others? "If it ever happens that you turn outward to want to please another person, certainly you have lost you plan of life (sec 23)." I do not see how making another person's life easier or happier could be wrong, or does Epictetus refer to "pleasing" others as sucking up or degrading yourself for them? It's confusing as a couple of sections later we read this: "You were not invited to someone's banquet? You did not give the host the price of the meal. He sells it for praise; he sells it for attention (sec. 25)." What is so different in each case? Maybe "pleasing" and "praising" are very different in definition and thus they are completely distinct issues. Still, with praise you please the person who receives it.

A very important truth Epictetus staes is how we fel different about a single event when it happens to a friend or it happens to me. "We should have remembered how we feel when we hear of the same thing about others (sec 26)." This reminds me of a time when my cousins' house was broken into and they had a terrbile experience. I thought, "Well its unfortunate but what could be done?" As soon as a similar experience happened to me I felt completely different, scared, vulnerable, powerless. The Handbook tells us to view every situation objectively in order to have a clear mind to make the best decision possible after analyzing the situation and its repercussions.

The Handbook of Epictetus Section 1-15

"Some things are up to us and some are not up to us (sec.1)." This might seem a pretty obvious and plain statement to some, but in reality those two things carry much more than we give them credit for. The things that are up to us include our desires and dislikes. We can determine what each of this is. I can determine whether I like coffee or I don't like coffee, but I cannot determine how coffee tastes. Those things are not up to us. Humans, at least in my case, feel we are in control of much more than we really are. I feel I can determine whether or not someone will be my friend, but in reality I cannot force them to. As Epictetus puts it, "If you think that things naturally enslaved are free or that things not your own are your own, you will be thwarted, miserable, and upset (sec. 1)..." This is one of the main reasons people get frustrated and stressed in life, they think they are truly in control.

What Epictetus recommends the reader to do in order to avoid frustration and live a full life is to accept the world and its events as they are, you cannot change them so why bother to get stressed? "Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well (sec. 8)." This way of thinking reminded me of the movie The Peaceful Warrior. In the movie, Socrates (appropiate name?) tells the protagonist, Dan, "If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold on to it forever." This is very true, we want things we can't control, money, affection, material things, or something as simple as sunshine. If we don't get them we will be dissapointed, but if we do they won't last for ever. For this dilema, Epictetus tells us, "For the time being eliminate desire completely, since if you desire something that is not up to us, your are bound to be unfortunate (sec. 2)."

The stoics believed the world occured in an intricate pattern that couldn't be alterred so they chose simply to flow in it and let life go its desired way. This reminds me of the Tao te Ching, a book from an entirely diferent culture and geographic area which tells us to let life's forces flow as they must. Coincidence? I believe not as this life philosophy proves valid everywhere and even today.

There is one doubt I have from Epictetus' stoic philosophy. If the world follows a pattern and it can't be changed by us since it is not "up to us", what is the explanation for actions we take by our own decision that affect others? In a radical example, murder. Have we just changed the course of someone's life by affecting it ourselves? Was it predestined to occur? How about love? True love is a two-way emotion, two people fall in love and they form a relationship. They are affecting the other by loving. Prior to their falling in love they lived very differently, but after they have affected the other to fall in love their lives changed. Was this the person's doing? They could have chosen entirely different people to love. Or is everything entirely predictable? On a wider scale, what of modern environment projects? Naure is not up to us, but humans have been capable of harnessing water power in dams or fuel from oil, how can this be explained by Stoic philosophy?

Slaughterhouse Five - pgs 182 - end

In the final chapters of the novel, the reader finds out how Valencia dies. Strangely, Valencias death is kind of humorous, at least how Vonnegut describes it. "But the rear end of the Cadillac was a body-and-fender man's wet dream (pg. 182)" "The Cadillac, with both mufflers gone, sounded like a heavy bomber coming in on a wing and a prayer (pg 183)." This death isn't the cold and impartial death that left a feeling on the reader, it was a death where some might even grin while picturing it. Why did Vonnegut choose to show Valencia's death in such a picturesque way? Why not keep it cold as in the rest of the novel? Was it because she died for love while trying to reach her loved one? Is that death actually worth it unlike many others in this book?

Later on, next to Billy theres a military historian and his wife. She is reading President Truman's announcement of Hiroshima, and the reader can see and excerpt of it. I believe Vonnegut inserted that text so the reader could see the absurd justifications for such destruction:

The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many-fold. And the end is not yet. With this bomb we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces (pg 185).

Vonnegut shows us how pure destruction is in the minds of humans and how absurd that seems, even form the leaders of the world.

Following his stay at the hospital, Billy time travels back to the end of the war. He is lying in a wagon and oddly enough, it is his happiest moment ever. "He might have chosen as his happiest moment his sundrenched snooze in the back of the wagon (pg 195)." Why would Billy choose this simple moment as his favorite memory? Perhaps it was because he was, for a moment worry-free, no more death, no more pointless fighting. However, he later saw the horses that pulled the wagon, "When Billy saw the condition of is means of transportation, he burst into tears. He hadn't cried about anyting else in the war (pg 197)." What significance did the horse's pain bring to Billy? Was it perhaps the thought that in even his moment of greatest joy, there was still pain near him? Was it perhaps the accumulation of sorrow form all his experience that culminated in that moment?

In the last chapter of the book, the narrator starts talking of himself again and shows how death is ever present, however he also mentions how good times must also be thought of and be enjoyed to the fullest. Still he continues adding to the anti-war impersonal feeling by showing how normal the end of the war was:

And then, one morning, they got up to discover that the door was unlocked. World War Two was over. Billy and the rest wandered out onto the shady street. The tress were leafing out. There was nothing going on out there, no traffic of any kind (pg 215).

The end of the novel reminds me of the final episode of a mini series named Band of Brothers. At the end of the war, the platoon of the series is given orders to stay at a certain German country side and its like if nothing had changed after the war, daily life began again, boredom became a problem and one second the soldiers were heroes and the other they were regular people again.

After finishing the novel, I realized I didn't notice a clear rising action, climax or falling action. Everything was set in a similar tone and the whle novel came and left without much difference. Vonnegut probably did this to add to the impersonality of death and war. "Its terrible, its impersonal, and it happens every day, without you noticing it."

Gulliver's Travels

In this excerpt from Gulliver's Travels, the narrator tells us about his 3-year trip to the country of the Houyhnhnms. he lands there after his mutinous crew leaves him there. He meets this species of animals, the Houyhnhnms which are rational creatures like humans, have govnerments and moral values. They are not human though, they resemble horses. In this land, the roles are changed as the beasts of burden here are actually humans, or at least primates, that are called Yahoos.

In Swift's novel, the country of the Houyhnhms is a Utopia of human thought. Every citizen fulfill his social contract of the better good, and there is no evil, not even a word for evil. "I know not whether it may be worth observing,that the Houyhnhnms have no word in their language to express anything that is evil...(pg 4)." Everyone works for honor and acts in accordance to the benefit of society, not for personal gain and still everyone lives comfortably and in complete serenity. This is what every single society desires, what religion wants and what none of them has managed to achieve. This is why the narrator, when he is banished, he does not want to live with humans again, he has tasted ideological Eden and cannot stand the bitter fruits of human society. "For, supposing I should escape with life by some strange adventure, how could I think with temper, of passing my days among Yahoos (pg 7)..."

An interesting thing I would have never thought about a human utopia was how a government would not force someone to do something, but simply Exhort them to take their advice. "For they have no conception how a rational creature can be compelled, but only advised or exhorted, because no person can disobey reason without giving up his claim to be a rational creature (pg 7)." I found this amazingly simple and very logical. Strangely enough, I haven't read in any ideological paradise about anything similar to this. Could it be a general believe that men need to be ruled by force in order to function properly?

Interestingly, the only true discussion the Houyhnhnms actually have in their councils is the situation of the Yahoo population. The Yahoos are bestialized humans. They don't possess speech, are much hairier and posses claws. They are used as beasts of burden and their body parts are used for tools, to create textiles and other things. The exact opposite occuers in human land, the horses are the beasts and the humans are the masters. Perhaps this is a metaphor for the humn race itself. It has always happened that one nation or culture believes another is savage and thus deserves to be enslaved or destroyed. The Europeans with the Native Amerincas and Africans, the Christians with other religions, etc. Maybe in the story the Humans represent the domianat culture of the area and the Houyhnhnms represnt the savage culture in that area. In the Houyhnhnm nation, they represent the dominant culture while they feel the humans are the barbarians. This reminded me of the movie The Last Samurai, here Tom Cruise's character first sees the Japanese as an inferior nation and the Samurai as savages, but after he is captured this view changes, much as how the narrator changed his view of horses.

Slaughterhouse Five - pgs 154- 182

"He knew it was going to crash, but he didn't want to make fool of himself by saying so (pg 154)." Billy thinks this as he enters the fateful plane in which he would crash and be one of the two survivors. There is an uncomfortable plainess in this passage. He knows of a terrible accident that will happen, even killing his father-in-law and he doesn't say anything out of looking stupid. This reminds me of all those movies like Paycheck where the main character sees the future and he attempts to change the outcome of the story. Why doesn't Billy resemble those characters? Perhaps its the classic Trafalmadorian thinking of fate and how it will never be changed. How does this thinking come into the anti-war theme of this book? To me it does the exact opposite, people will die, there will be war, and there's nothing we can do about it. How Vonnegut uses this is still unclear to me.

In Billy's plane, some singers sing about Poles and then the novel tells us, as if it was nothing serious, that Billy saw a Pole being hanged during the war. "Speaking of people from Poland: Billy Pilgrim accidentally saw a Pole being hanged in public, about three days after Billy got to Dresden (pg. 155)." This small-talk about someone's death is what really gets anti-war feelings in me, not time travel or Trafalmadorians. In this sentence there's another curious thing. The author writes it with no pronouns, he uses Billy's name every time he mentions him. Probably to add to the journalistic, impersonal tone of the book.

As the chapter moves on, Billy remebrs his work in the Dresden factory he was contracted to. It produced malt syrup. Billy often scooped syrup and drank it while no one was looking, but in one of those cases this happens:

So Billy made a lollipop for him [Derby]. He opened the window. He stuck the lollipop into poor old Derby's gaping mouth. A moment passed, and then Derby burst into tears. Billy closed the window and hid the sticky spoon. Somebody was coming.

Why did Derby cry? Was it the joy of tasting the syrup? Was it the fear caused by that "somebody" that was coming? Did he see Derby? Was this why he was gonna get shot? A ver interesting thing in this excerpt is the unique adjective given to Derby, "poor old Derby". Was this because of his desire for syrup or because he was gonna get shot soon? If it was for the second reason it would be a unique description as whenever someone is dead or close to being he is never reffered with any kind of affection. Why would Vonnegut do the exceptionwith Derby?

The beginning of the next chapter has no reference to the previous incident, likely another "impersonality" literary method. In this chapter they talk about Howard W. Campbell Jr. an American that became a Nazi. When he addresses the Americans, Derby speaks back to him. Here they mention him again as "Poor old Derby". " Poor old Derby, the doomed high school teacher, lumbered to his feet for what was probably the finest moment in his life (pg 164)." Why does Vonnegut treat Derby so affectionately while treating the death of thousands others as if it was nothing?

Then Vonnegut actually narrates the destruction of Dresden by the Allies. Instead of mentioning more destruction, he states it beautifully, "It was like the moon (pg 179)." Such a simple and unrelated sentence, but when the reader actually pictures the moon and then pictures Dresden the simile is understood. Its not as much as the destrucition but the desolation and emptiness. After such a brief and strong imagery, Vonnegut wraps it up perfectly for the anti-war theme, "The idea was to hasten the end of the war (pg 180)."

Slaughterhouse Five - pgs 136-153

This new chapter in the novel starts in a particular way:

Listen:
Billy Pilgrim says he went to Dresden, Germany....... (pg 136)

Prior to this excerpt, the novel always related Billy's life with a third person omnipresent narrator. Why would Vonnegut changed this and state that Billy told this story, or at least this part of the story? Could this mark the changed between two key parts of the novel? This is probably the case as in this chapter we meet the actual Slaughterhouse Five and enter Dresden, the infamouse city to be firebombed in the near future. The rest of the chapter also includes more of these cases in which its is stated that Billy narrated this part of the story, "Billy Pilgrim says now that this is really the way he is gonna die, too (pg 141)." I am baffled by this sudden change in narration and hope the reason for this becomes clearer.

Another interesting part about this chapter is the lack of time traveling so important in the previous chapters. How does the entry into Dresden affect the way the novel develops? Why does the present gain importance in the book rather than the particular use of time travel? Vonnegut perhaps believed his anti-war theme needed some focus in this part of the book.

He found two small sources, two lumps an inch apart and hidden in the lining.....He was told not to find out what the lumps were. He was advised to be content with knowing that they could work miracles for him, provided he did not insist on learning their nature (pg 137).

Later on in the chapter those two mysterious lumps proved to be a diamond and a partial denture. Billy finds them while he is being attacked by a German surgeon who thinks Billy is making fun of the war. What importance do these two artifacts have that they will "work miracles for him"? The diamond is likely the diamond he gave his wife Valencia and the partial denture's meaning is still unclear to me. The way in which Billy found them, in some sort of trance or delusion makes them all the more mysterious and interesting in the novel. I hope their true meaning will become clear to me soon.

In this chapter we meet an interesting character: Paul Lazzaro. Paul had his arm broken while he was trying to steal cigarrettes and lies next to Billy in the hospital wing of the camp. There we learn that Paul enjoys having people killed if they ever bother him. "Anybody touches me, he better kill me, or I'm gonna have him killed (pg 138)." He then says that he is gonna have Billy killed, and Billy know this and is calm about it. Im still amazed at Billy's calmness after he time travels to all those different events and he know what will happen to him. If it was me I'd be shocked, but apparently the Trafalmadorians really did share much knowledge with Billy so he now accepts whatever comes. Going back to Paul, he reminds me of a mafia member like in The Godfather who has his enemies killed, but he seems more pathetic. He enjoys hsi revenge, even if he took a whole decade to prepare it, "Nothing's gonna happen for maybe five, ten, fifteen, twenty years (pg 141)." A true mobster will have his enemies killed quickly and efficiently. Lazzaro also spends a large part of his time thinking who he will have killed, HE doesn't even do the dirty work. Despite this, he feels that having people killed is the best revenge. All this makes me pity Paul. Will his relationship with Billy change? What role will he play in the rest of the novel?

Slaughterhouse Five - pgs 120-136

Following Billy's marriage and honeymoon night, we hear his wife Valencia ask him about war. The author then states, "It was a simple-minded thing for a female Earthling to do, to associate sex and glamor with war." (pg 121) How is this statement true? Could Vonnegut believe a common belief amongst uneducated women to be that a soldier makes a good lover? Another interesting part of this sentence is the use of the word "Earthling" instead of simply stating that a woman thought this, what did Vonnegut want to say with this? Maybe these kinds of relations are very "Earth-like" in the way that they're absurd like war. How could killing make someone a better lover?

Following this event, Billy travels back to the POW camp where he is under the effects of morphine and he limps outside the hospital. He gets snagged in a fence and meets a Russian. Billy is so doped he can't unsnagg himself so the Russian does it for him and Billy leaves. "The Russian waved to him, and called after him in Russian, 'Good Bye.' "(pg 124) This might not seem like much to some, but this event gave me strong feelings. In this vast camp, the POW's are actually in the center of a larger extermiantion camp where Russians are basically starved to death. In this terrible atmosphere the Russian's kind action seems almost paradoxical. The phrase "good-bye" also appears more solemn than a simply "bye" or "see ya later", maybe Vonnegut did this unintentionally but "good-bye" gives the effect of gone forever, of lost hope. Could Vonnegut have added this to contrast the inhumanity of war with the humanity of the individual? At least in me it had that effect.

"That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book." (pg 125) I had not mentioned it before, but ocassionally the author refers to himself in the book like in this moment. I feel this adds to the reality of war, how it affects us all but with its brief mentioning also highlights the impersonality of violence.

Despite being small descriptions and word choices, I feel these are what make Slaughterhouse Five a great anti-war novel as it gives the reader very strong feelings in very few words.

Slaughterhouse Five - pgs 96-119 & Kurt Vonnegut interview with Don Swaim

During Kurt Vonnegut's interview with Don Swaim (http://wiredforbooks.org/kurtvonnegut/) we can laern many interesting things about Vonnegut's life and his works. This gave me an new perspective on Slaughterhouse Five, specially on these last pages. We hear Vonnegut is an agnostic or atheist, this involves no believe in God or in a superior power, which might be a reason his writing about war is so impersonal and cold, like his use of "so it goes" after every death. Could this be a protest towards people who believe there is a God who doesn't stop the terrible events in war? Vonnegut's coldness in his war descriptions try to depict war and life as it really is, with death being meaningless to others. Religion dwells on what could happen in the future, what has been done in the past, and that is what the Trafalmadorians say is strange, alien to the rest of the universe. In fact, the Trafalmadorians know how the universe ends, but they know it can't be prevented so they just accept it. "He has always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way." (pg. 117) The alianes then say life should be focused on the beautiful things to live fully. This in part is true, but if we ignore the horrible parts of life, we won't fully enjoy the good parts or give a better life to other generations. The Trafalmadorian way of thinking, in my opinion, is a little selfish in that aspect.

In the interview, I learned Vonnegut was a POW in the war and that gave me new insight on the novel. His views of war are founded on real experience, unlike others who bases their opinions on investigation or secondary sources. With this knowledge I can judge this book as an opinion of the people who were actually in it. The coldness, the impersonality, and the futile actions of war.

On another subject, in a previous blog I wanted to know why Billy hates life, in these pages I start learning about his views on life. "They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war."(pg. 101) The horrors of war probably made Billy dissapointed on God, especially as he was an assistant to a priest during the war, and how faith did not help the millions that were killed during the fray. However, I also noted another aspect on Billy's views: he hid form his mother because he was ashamed of his hatred of life.

"She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she had gone to so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn't really life at all." (pg 102)

Will this changed? How are his two views of life connected? Hopefully the novel expands on this interesting aspect.

Slaughterhouse Five - pgs 72-96

Following Billy's packing in a boxcar, the new chapter talks to us about Billy's abduction form earth by the Trafalmadorians. A strange part of this event is that somehow Billy has complete knowledge of his abduction. "Billy now shuffled down his upstairs hallway, knowing he was about to be kidnapped by a flying saucer." (pg 72) Billy's character is so different from any I have met that I wasn't at all surprised at this. As Billy walked down his house to be abducted he saw a movie while being unstuck in time so he saw the movie backwards. Here Vonnegut does an interesting thing by showing the war backwards, "The bombers exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes." (pg 74) This made me sense a certain irony in the passage as what sounded nice and harmless was never gonna happen, instead the exact opposite would occur. Maybe Vonnegut used this as more anti-war appeals, showing how the exact opposite of war seemed perfectly natural and logical.

After Billy left his house and was lifted into the saucer that was waiting for him, he was told by his captors not to worry of the reasons why he was there, he just had to accept that it had occured. Then his trip to Trafalmadore began. An interesting message by a Trafalmadorian was, "Only on Earth is there any talk of free will." (pg 86) This is curious as then I started thinking about free will as I read along and found that the alien was right, at least in war, free will doesn't exist. In Billy's case, he couldn't even choose to sleep as the rest of the soldiers in the boxcar wouldn't permit him. When a German hit an American in the mouth, the American asked, "Why me?" and the German answered, "Vy you? Vy anybody?" (pg 91) This inmediately reminded me of what the Trafalmadorian said, there is no free will. I think this might be one of the ongoing themes throughout the novel. A great example of how this is shown over and over is the phrase "So it goes" which is used every time death is mentioned. It tries to give the reader the feeling that there's nothing that can be done about death, it will just happen. "A slave laborer form Poland had done the stamping. He was dead now. So it goes." (pg 91)

A part of the text I found interesting was the first encounter with the English POW's. They were singing "Hail, Hail, the Gang's all Here". That happy ambient does a sharp contrast with what it encounters almost directly in front of them: Death, starvation nad pain. It shows what the early war had been and how the war evlolved into the worst humanity could offer, extermination camps, racism, lack of moral values. This is one of those vivid images that Vonnegut clearly chose for its great potential to be remembered and reflected upon.

Slaughterhouse Five - pgs 52-71

The next chapter in Slaughterhouse pick up during Billy and Ronald's capture. It describes the state of the German soldiers that captured them. They were old, ragged, some even without shoes. This inmediately reminded me of Billy himself. In war, the fighters are not soldiers, they are family members with different jobs and occupations. They don't want war, they simply want to return home. At this point I remebered a movie I recently saw called 300. During the movie, 300 Spartans meet up with an Athenian army and the Athenin general rebukes the Spartans for coming in such a small force. Then the Spartan general asks the Athenians their occupations and as they say lumberjack, pottery maker, etc. it resembled this event in the novel.

As Billy lay in the ground after Ronald's beating, he saw a young German soldier, "The boy was as beautiful as Eve." (pg 53) What is the meaning of this? Why is the boy compared ot Eve? He is later compared to an androgyne. This reminds me of some science fiction movies where the aliens have no clearly defined gender, they posses characterisitcs of both male and female. Could this be similar in the novel? Could the boy be some kind of foreshadow of the Trafalmadorians that abduct Billy? I hope there is more relevance of this strange description in the novel.

After the capture, Billy was taken to a nearby house filled with more American POW's. There he goes forward in time for a brief period, then he goes back to WWII as he is awakened by a German soldier. This further sustains my theory that the time travel is like dreaming, where the observer is part of the story but can't affect it while he forms part of it. Billy is then moved into a single river of POW's into Germany. Here Vonnegut wrties a great description of the movement of the prisoners:

"Through the valley flowed a Mississippi of humiliated Americans. Tens of thousands of Americans shuffled eastward, their hands clasped on top of their heads. They sighed and groaned." (pg 64)

The image given to the reader is of impersonality, thousands of scared soldiers moving like one, each individual lacking importance. What really shocks the reader is the impression of vastness given. I believe it is at these points during the story, those descriptions of humanity or impersonality in war that make this text one of the great anti-war books of the century. What is still leaves me thinking is the importance of time traveling to the anti-war them of the book. How does this unique tool work to give the reader the desired effect?

As Billy reached a trainyard where all the prisoners were being classified and placed in cars I inmediately remebered concentration camps. The moving of people like cattleheads is a really strong image and what really makes me reflect is the fact that its true. During the trainyard event, we meet a character named "Wild Bob" he is a sick colonel who is delirious and believes his regiment is with him, when in truth all his regiment is dead. This character made me feel pityful and reminded me of how the horrors of war can mark a person in spirit. What made this thought even worse was, "The germans carried the corpse out. The corpse was Wild Bob. So it goes." (pg 69) The coldness and impersonality of this death really gives a chill to the reader and Vonnegut likely chose to write impersonally, like if it was a news report, to generate this effect on the reader.

So far into the novel, the effect of generating really vivid images of war and of the horrors occuring there has been very effective in creating anti-war sentiments in me.

Slaughter-house Five - Reading Blog pgs 23- 51

After the introduction done by the author (not Vonnegut but the narrator), his book begins. It starts with a rather curious sentence, "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time."(pg. 23) My first impression was , "What the heck does that mean?" As I read on it basically meant traveling through time, past, present and future. However, there is a slight catch, Billy apparently cannot control his travels. This makes his traveling even more astonishing.

As the text flows, we learn about Billy's life. He was an optometrist and served in WWII and after the war he was very succesfull. Later on he suffered severe head trauma and after that he claimed he was abducted by aliens. At this point I was asking myself where was this story going to. Aliens? War? Bombings? Very strange combination of subjects in my opinion.

The story then tells us of Billy's first "unsticking" in time. He was in the last months of the war and he had been separated from his group during the Battle of the Bulge. He had met up with three other soldiers and they were making their way back to American lines. At this point Billy is described, "He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo."(pg.33) My view of Billy was now of pity. He reminded me of Gollum in the Lord of the Rings, a character that can only make the reader feel pity and contempt, not love, not hate.

As I read more I began to wonder why Billy had such little desire to live? In the text I couldn't find any answer to this an I really want to know. Is this related with his time travelling?

Then came Billy's first time travel. He went into 1965 and led his usual life as if he had lived all that time. This makes me wonder how this time travel works...Does he see his life in third person or does he become part of the scene? Or is it similar to a memory? If he does live his future, why doen't he act surprised as he jumps through time? That makes me think it is really like a memory. When Billy returns to the war he continues his journey until the group reaches a river, there two of the group leave Billy and Ronald Weary, a young soldier. Infuriated by the ditch, Ronald begins beating up Billy, who doesn't seem to care much. He doesn't express much pain only "convulsive sounds that sounded like laughter."(pg. 51) As ronald was about to break Biilly's back, five German soldiers reached the scene. Billy was now a POW.

ROnald character is an interesting one. He is the typical daydreamer who thinks he will make a huge difference and will become famous almost instantly. As I read about his daydreams I was remembered of myself. I daydream a lot, making up fantastic scenarios of everyday scenes, much like Ronald's "Three Musketeers" dream. Billy also reminded me of WWII movies, tv shows and videogames where there is alway the hotshot new kid who is either killed, gets his buddies killed or saves the day. I wonder how improsonment will make Ronald change. Will he become a leader? Perhaps attempt escapes? Will he be humbled? I hope those questions are asnwered soon.

What is a blog? Questions

A. What is the difference between a blog and a book?
B. How have blogs changes recently?
C. Why might you read a blog?
D. Is there reason to doubt the objectivity of a blog? Why? Why not?
E. If you kept your own blog, what would you title it?

A. The differences between a book and a blog are many. The blog is exclusively an online source while a book can be printed or in some cases published online. The main reason for the blog to be used only on the web is the usage of hyperlinks. With this tool, bloggers spread ideas and opinions throughtut the web or show people reading their own blogs places to find new information on the subject of the blog. With this comes the great difference in the atmosphere of a book and a blog. In a book, you have to give the reader much more information in the text as you want them to understand and follow the whole narrative. In contrast, a blog is a space for people to talk with others who are interested in similar subjects, this often mean that unique terms or specific events are never explained because they are considered "common knowledge". All of this makes blog and books very different.

B. Blogs have their beginnings in the 1980's, but at that time they were used as a tool for web users to record what they did in their works. later it developed into "Bloods" where people with internet access would post interesting sites they found and sometimes do small comments on them. In 1999 free tools for bloggin were published in the internet and in no time blogs were all across the internet. They soon became tools to talk about different ideas and subject like politics, sports, news, and even movies. Presently blogs often offer an "alternate" media, where news are discussed and published by different people with unique views, different from the "mass" media.

C. Reading a blog can provide me with fresh and unique views of different subjects. It also allows me to discuss subjects with people with similar interests, giving me even more insight on my interests.

D. A blog almost by definition is opinion-based. The author writes whatever he wants without worries of being harrassed or hurt. If the reader doen't like the opinion, well he can simply stop reading. The author only cares to share his opinions with people interested in what he says. In addition, the author often arguments his opinions with links to other blogs and certain facts, which he can easily choose form the millions of sources in the internet.

E. My blog would have to be titled depending on the subject im focusing on. Since I can have various blogs, I can easily do subject-based blogs with custom titles.