Slaughterhouse Five

I enjoyed this book because of the way it shows all sides of the issues of war and the ideas that people have about it. I think that the Tralfamadorian planet is included to show the way that war can change peoples lives for the worst. I think that they have some good ideas, especially the one of death on the planet. The idea that people die in the moment but are perfectly fine in other moments of time is something that I kind of believe in a sort of backwards way. I think that the ideas of time and death allow the grieving process to be easier than it seems to most people these days. You see people mourning for days and weeks at a time in our society, while on their planet life is constituted by a series of snapshots called life. The idea ties into the satirization of war by showing that peoples mind can be affected so heavily by the trials and tribulations of war. This book is one of the better written books ive read that use satire to talk about something as real and devastating as war and death. It gives the reader a chance to suspend his or her beliefs or disbeliefs on subjects like death and time and get lost in a world where these views are totally different than ours. We talked in class about how Tralfamador is real or fake, and i brought up the point that without the first hand experience, its impossible to say if its real or fake. Its real to him, and thats the point the author is trying to make. Reality is something that can change within people, depending on their personal experiences. His reality is also affected no doubt by the shock therapy he received.