I must note that I decided to call her up for some specific blog posts, so thanks Ding! For anyone who cares, she is the also one who sabotaged my profile picture while I was in Japan. Yeah, thanks again, Ding.
Oh, we also used to share Amber Blob, until she fell in love with Tumblr (half my friends are addicts), and the split became more convenient while I was away.
This turned out quite well, because now I can comment on her lovely blog, Vonnegusto.
There is SO much to work with!
Ding's content or points, will appear in red, my own will be blue.
I chose four different posts to focus on:
Putting on Some Spec[ulation]s
“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned and you with it, dust of the dust!' Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer, 'Never have I heard anything more divine'?”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Billy Pilgrim will never stop travelling through time (Friedrich Nietzsche reference)
- He has "always lived and always will live."
Nietzsche puts the concept quite aptly with his quote, above. Make life worth it so that you would not mind reliving it over and over again, because like Billy, you might have to.
Billy's "laissez-fair" view of life is the affects of the recycling of his life, he has grown apathetic, pathetic, and allows whatever happens to him, happen.
"Billy Pilgrim stood there politely, giving the marksman another chance."
Nietzche and Vonnegut's ideas collide here. Nietzche encourages us to pretend that we will have to relive our lives repeatedly, and that we need to make life as bearable and good as possible. Vonnegut, uses Billy as an example of willingly giving yourself to Fate. I think Billy is an example of what not to do, given his pathetic character. Hold on and focus on the good.
This Post is a Fart
A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Vonnegut himself was a humanist
- Slaughter-House's "cataract of a thundering moral statement" is very well hidden
- Vonnegut insists that the most important thing in life is to be kind to one another
- Love is an essential part of being human, and make life livable
I don't think I could agree any more. Prior to reading the book, we were encouraged to do some background reading on Vonnegut, and I found many links to his own speeches about the message of world peace and humanism.
Here are a few:
He was a definite humanist and understood the need for love among fellow human beings on our Earth. I also agree with Ding, that, Slaughter-House Five's message is hidden excellently. I like that - it makes the novel serve purpose two-fold - as a piece of literature and a work of persuasion (think about the thin veil of symbolism in Orwell's Animal Farm, it is only enjoyable when read as a warning against fascism and Stalinism). It might seem that Vonnegut is apathetic to human life, especially with his repeating phrase "So it goes", which is used whenever life is lost. But, like Ding, I believe that it was the whole point: a way to wake us up to the reality that love is essential.
With love, humans can be "quiet and trusting and beautiful".
The Ultimate Paradox
Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
- Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness
- Billy Pilgrim is an "exemplar of what not to do"
- Billy Pilgrim did have a fate, not only in his fictional world based on reality, but also as he is a character manipulated by his author
- "Unlike us, Billy Pilgrim has met aliens who really do know the future. Unlike us, Billy Pilgrim is a fictional character. Fictional characters always have a fate: in books, authors play God."
In Ding's other posts I agreed with what she was saying. This time, I agree ever more enthusiastically. Actually, she used the same phrase "what not to do", italics and all, as I did earlier in this same post. I had not read The Ultimate Paradox at that time. Ding just made it sound a lot better :)
Billy Pilgrim cannot be used as an example for us in our own lives far a variety of reasons. He is fictional and he was meant to be an "anti-example". Billy Pilgrim was condemned to his fate, Slaughter-House, but we are condemned to be free, we have no author.
Lart Pour Lart
"Art is the stored honey of the human soul"
"Art is the stored honey of the human soul"
- Theodore Dreisier
- All art is not useless, in contrary to Oscar Wilde
- Art is like "corrective lenses for human souls"
Sigh. I could probably go on about this subject forever at is one of my passions. As an artist myself (I used to feel uncomfortable saying that, but really everyone is in their own way), I strongly believe that art is what makes humans humans. Not language, not intellect, not complex emotions - although those add to our identity. Art is the sweet, enduring, eternal nectar of ourselves, and is one of the most important things to leave behind on this world before you pass. Why? Because it is unique, and no one else will give birth to the same thing. Yes, science is good, and beautiful in many other rights, but, in science, great minds think alike. In the realm of the arts, alikeness is unattainable.
This subject isn't very relevant to Slaughter-House, or my blog, but it is in one way: Slaughter-House Five is a gift from the essence of Kurt Vonnegut's being. That in itself is something great, but as he is a veteran of life, and war and love, it makes it something even greater.
I thought this was a nice way to end my final assignment.
Slaughter-House Five, is a piece of art.
Now that is something worth reading.
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