There is no escape from war. Kurt Vonnegut & Slaughterhouse 5

Tralfamadorians, a green alien race with hands for heads and eyes in their palms, from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, experience life in four dimensions. 

Time is not linear – past to present to future – but circular and parallel. Experienced all at once, randomly. Time (and life itself) is served as a sandwich. You take a bite of your birth, death and everything between all at once.

Humans, the Tralfamadorians say, are the only species in the universe to have the belief of ‘free will’. Odd, they think, as moments are structured so that one cannot prevent them, change them, or stop them. 

Despite its science fiction backbone, Slaughterhouse 5 is about WWII and the Dresden bombings which Vonnegut himself survived. 

Satirical and with an anti-war tone, the book seems to be a vehicle through which Vonnegut rationalises for himself the whole event, and the 170,000+ killed in one evening.

People may be against nuclear weapons, a character says (and I paraphrase), but they must remember man is capable of, and has carried out equal, if not more evil with traditional weapons. The evening that Dresden was brought to its knees was one that nearly killed more than both Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

War is inevitable. When Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, asks what the Tralfamadorians think of the fighting humans, they explain that they too experience wars, but know there is peace after and before it. Wars are inescapable for they are structured moments just as all others are. Therefore one should focus and enjoy the peace times as much as possible and not lament on the wars, horrible as they are. Equally, war should not be glorified. There is no happiness in it, only miserable, idiotic stupidity and evil. A message to an aggrieved audience; published during America’s war in Vietnam.

The media today portrays a chaotic world with wars abound. Yet, in comparison to recent history, we live in the most peaceful time for centuries. Slaughterhouse 5 suggests we remember that, and in turn remember what came before, and what will inevitably come after.