Mid-afternoon. You ran some errands had a
late lunch at Panera/Chipotle then ran more errands. Presently Carol is on page
258 of Low Pressure by Brown, and you are ready to begin work on Pouch
23. - Amorella
1445 hours. I am, but I probably ought
to re-read the last segment because I have no idea what happened and where we
are going from here. I haven't really thought about it. I don't know how we can
have any kind of theatrical conclusion to this one other than heading off to
Three Planets. Surely that wouldn't happen in short sequence time-wise. Homes
would have to be rented out and the three would have to be on some sort of sabbatical
leave even if Blake does own the company Jason does not work for him. We need a
timeline too. It hasn't been too long since the beginning -- that was in January
2012.(I think) -- maybe each segment needs a timeline in which to begin and
conclude the book (with Merlyn as the reference since they are his dream.)
Let's go with June, Flag Day, 2012 how's
that? - Amorella
What a neat gesture, Amorella,
Thursday 14 June 2012, Flag Day, it is.
What happens?
What
you thought, they leave for Three Planets. - Amorella
I never really know that what flashes
through my mind in a nanosecond, then registers and moves on, is me or you.
This is a problem real people would have if
they were actually telepathic isn't it? - Amorella
Yes. I would have never considered
this but yes it is. Slaughterhouse-Five comes to mind immediately and the Tralfamadorians,
who were shaped like the plumber's friend, but were also telepathic. I never
understood why they needed a spaceship as such, other than for one individual.
Everyone else could just sense herorhis thoughts and be there in spirit only.
** **
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with
Death
(1969) is a satirical novel by Kurt
Vonnegut and World War II experiences and journeys through time of a soldier
called Billy Pilgrim. Ranked the 18th greatest English novel of the 20th
century by Modern Library, it is generally recognized as Vonnegut's most
influential and popular work.
Plot summary of Slaughterhouse-Five
Chaplain's Assistant Billy
Pilgrim is a disoriented, fatalistic, and ill-trained American soldier. He does
not like wars and he is captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge.
The Germans put Billy and his fellow prisoners in a disused slaughterhouse
(although there are animal carcasses hanging in the underground shelter) in
Dresden. Their building is known as "Slaughterhouse number 5". The
POWs and German guards alike hide in a deep cellar; because of their safe
hiding place, they are some of the few survivors of the city-destroying
firestorm during the Bombing of Dresden in World War II.
Billy has come "unstuck in
time" and experiences past and future events out of sequence and
repetitively, following a nonlinear narrative. He is kidnapped by
extraterrestrial aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. They exhibit him in a zoo
with B-movie starlet Montana Wildhack as his mate. The Tralfamadorians, who can
see in four dimensions, have already seen every instant of their lives. They
say they cannot choose to change anything about their fates, but can
choose to concentrate upon any moment in their lives, and Billy becomes
convinced of the veracity of their theories.
As Billy travels—or believes he
travels—forward and backward in time, he relives occasions of his life, real
and fantasy. He spends time on Tralfamadore, in Dresden, in the War, walking in
deep snow before his German capture, in his mundane post-war married life in
the U.S.A. of the 1950s and early 1960s, and in the moment of his murder by
Lazzaro.
Billy's death is the consequence
of a string of events. Before the Germans capture Billy, he meets Roland Weary,
a jingoist character and bully, just out of childhood like Billy, who
constantly chastises him for his lack of enthusiasm toward war. At their
capture, the Germans confiscate everything Weary has, including his boots,
giving him hinged, wooden clogs to wear; Weary eventually dies of gangrene
caused by the clogs. On his deathbed, Weary manages to convince another
soldier, petty thief Paul Lazzaro, that Billy is to blame; Paul vows to avenge
Weary's death by killing Billy, because revenge is "the sweetest thing in
life." Time-traveler Billy already knows where, when, and how he will be
killed: he is shot with a laser gun after his speech on flying saucers and the
true nature of time before a large audience in Chicago, in a balkanized United
States on February 13, 1976 (in the future at the time of writing).
From Wikipedia -
Slaughterhouse-Five
** **
1521
hours. Wiki is a fun to re-read. I taught Kurt Vonnegut's book several years and
had it on a reading list longer. One of my favorite characters in his books is
Kilgore Trout. -- Home. (1538)
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