So it goes.

Although “interesting” may not be the most specific, complex, unique, custom-fit word to describe literature, I feel that it is appropriate and would like to associate it with the opening of Slaughterhouse-Five. Interesting. To start off the novel, Vonnegut offers a very autobiographical perspective in chapter 1. He is unusual in the way he combines the first chapter with what could be read as a preface to the novel, and calls himself out on the writing process and quality of his work. To add on to that, he employs an almost overly casual style applied to a serious topic, the effect of which can be interpreted in few ways, and the most popular in 4^th hour was a unanimous sense of authority assigned to Vonnegut. And if he really didn't go through all that he claims that he did, then he plays a character well because I am definitely believing what he writes. His non-affected tone puts him in a place for the reader to view him as genuine man and not some self-proclaimed expert that may or may not be delivering the right message. Even if he doesn't deliver the “right” message, we can still take Vonnegut seriously because it is his experience and insight to something he went through.

In addition to his writing style, the little fact that he keeps promises adds on to his credibility. What I mean by this relates to when he was on his visit in 1964 to see O’Hare. He sensed that Mary O’Hare was not on good terms with him, and when she exploded with a moment of criticism to the narrator (Vonnegut), she furiously objects to her expectation of Vonnegut writing a book on the glorious aspects of war, which, in her mind, don’t exist. Not long after he makes a promise not to have “…a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne” which satisfies her. He also promises to name the book “The Children’s Crusade,” which he did, even though it is not the primary/well-known title. This partly lets me conclude that he will also keep his word to not portray himself or war as a whole as something that should be celebrated or encouraged.

A large part as to why his tone is considerably overly casual is that he breezes by mentions of death and other atrocities. To make matters more interesting, he adds the phrase “so it goes” after each death. I take this as Vonnegut’s continuous reminder and commentary on how cruel this world is, and how he has become accustomed to it. Along the same lines, it is also a way for him to show how he believes that each death is just a speck in the big picture of this world, and time will move on, specifically, it will move on in a cyclical fashion. This theme of how he characterizes time is incipient early on, and he ties it in with the phrase “so it goes” as explained on page 27. The Tralfamadorians are people that don’t think of time linearly, and each time someone dies they say the phrase. Vonnegut adopts this meaningful phrase and mutters it by habit each time someone’s life is ended; reason being that the person who is no longer living is fine in several other moments, just not the one of the present.

One of the songs introduced in chapter 1 is about a figure Yon Yonson, and it enforces the idea about cyclical time in Slaughterhouse-Five:

“My name is Yon Yonson,

I work in Wisconsin,

I work in a lumbermill there.

The people I meet when I walk down the street,

They say, ‘What’s your name?’

And I say,

‘My name is Yon Yonson,

I work in Wisconsin…’”

The repeated nature of this song make this excerpt one of many examples of how Vonnegut recognizes time cyclically, which is strongly connected to the often used phrase “so it goes.”

I really enjoyed the way chapter 1 was closed. Vonnegut describes the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as he narrates what he was reading through at a motel. When the city is destroyed, people die: first use of “so it goes.” Then Lot’s wife looks back and instantly crumbles into salt which triggers the second use of the phrase. Following the story, Vonnegut plays with the aspects of the Sodom and Gomorrah story by generalizing that people shouldn’t look back, and he continues by commenting that he won’t look back again since he is a pillar of salt. Personally, I read this as his hinting to the fact that human nature is naturally imperfect, and just as he casually remarks about all the deaths, he does so about our world and people. Applied to his concept on time and vast world, he implies that the way of humans doesn’t matter. I just thought that the ending of the chapter was neat, and he tied together the aspects I mentioned here in my blog post into a tight end, which functions as the beginning for the story of the novel.