Time Travel

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

One compelling mood that Vonnegut is very talented of inducing is this whole notion of timelessness. From the beginning of the book, the idea of time travel and the relativity of time is highlighted and even somewhat explained in parts. The explanations are helpful, yet still quit puzzling. How could someone begin to understand something as perplexing and abstract as a fourth dimension and past, present, and future all coinciding. Well, literary structure seems to do the trick. Through what I've blasted through so far, the entirety of this book is set very complexly and seemingly random where totally unrelated events can happen at any time. You are so easily swept off to so many of Billy's life events no matter if it past or present or future. The truth is, giving the context of this book. There is no past or present or future. By reading this book we are swept through a grand story, with not a true beginning, middle, or end. The reader begins to adapt to this notion of timelessness and then starts to embrace it. A book itself can help describe some of the philosophy of this story. In a book, who's to say what is present. As you read one page, that is presently what you are reading, but just as soon as you are done with that you may move ten pages behind and be presently reading that as well. As the Tralfamadorians say, "What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time" (Vonnegut 88)