Billy Pilgrim

well...
the response to the this feature was decidedly less than i expected, which is saying quite a lot because--idealist though i can be--i honestly didn't expect much. this may be the one and only text discussed in HEOIF, and this column will likely become merely a list of what i am reading during my sabbatical from life.

but! i mustn't leave the nelms... without a response, as he made some most excellent observations and hit upon just about all below, so let us discuss billy pilgrim, the name, and the character. please keep in mind that i am using only the primary text--no secondary sources--and have admittedly not spent sufficient time to craft any serious sort of essay below; these are just my reactions and thoughts.

what's in a name? vonnegut actually tells us. when billy engages in a little bump and tickle with a very drunk woman--not his wife--at a new year's eve party in 1961, she asks him why he is called billy, rather than william. the unspoken answer is that billy's father had told him "...to encourage people to call him billy--because it would stick in their memories. it would also make him seem slightly magical, since there weren't any other grown billys around. it also compelled people to think of him as a friend right away." (44) billy's father recognizes the inherent disarming power of appearing boyish and childlike.

unfortunately, in the case of billy pilgrim, we find a character more childish than childlike--a perversion of his father's intent--a petulant, disinterested twit described as "unenthusiastic about living" (58), who "really didn't like life at all." (97) in fact, one of billy's earliest memories is of drowning at the bottom of a ymca pool, where he "dimly sensed that someone was rescuing him. billy resented that." (41) this attitude of billy's directly affects every one of his relationships, with the noted exceptions of those with his wife valencia, eliot rosewater and kilgore trout, and miss montana wildhack (yum). people in fact don't think of him immediately as a friend, and whatever magic his name might have kindled is relegated to insanity--the other characters, such as edgar derby and professor bertram copeland rumfoord, more often than not simply put up with billy due to circumstance, and in some cases characters, like roland weary, actually suffer in his presence.

the effect of billy's childishness is two-fold. it allows him to grow as a character at the hands (clever me!) of the trafalmadorians, and it reinforces the subtitle to the novel: the children's crusade. the fact that wars are fought by children is one that vonnegut keeps foremost in our minds throughout the novel, somewhat covertly through the actions of billy himself, but also overtly. (63-65) in fact, in the framing of this narrative vonnegut draws specific attention to mary o'hare--one of the two to whom he dedicates the text--and her concern that when he completed his war book it would contain roles for frank sinatra and john wayne. (14) indeed, this serves as perhaps the key relevancy for me: check the link above, and scroll through the list of soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen. what is the average age range of the fallen? it brings to mind senator boxer's pointed remarks to condoleeza rice about not having a personal stake in the conflict... which then begs the same question of the rest of our elected officials. congressman rangle made the same point, with perhaps greater subtlety, in his introduction of legislation to reinstate the draft. i've already quoted black sabbath's war pigs in a previous post, so there is no need to do so again.

billy pilgrim is a child, ill-equipped to deal with the reality presented him. he is pitiful:

"rosewater was twice as smart as billy, but he and billy were dealing with crises in similar ways. they had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in the war. rosewater, for instance, had shot a fourteen-year-old fireman, mistaking him for a german soldier. so it goes. and billy had seen the greatest massacre in european history, which was the fire-bombing of dresden. so it goes.

so they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. science fiction was a big help." (96)

how much of this is autobiographical? does it matter? the caricature of billy is such that moments like this throw into stark relief the grim realities with which vonnegut grapples, and perhaps makes the associated emotions more accessible; because the allied attack on dresden was so absurd, billy's absurdities possibly aide us in serving as a sort of harmonizing or resolving note... which brings me to his surname.

what then of the "pilgrim"? well, the obvious answer may be found in the opening lines: "billy pilgrim has come unstuck in time." (22) vonnegut creates for us--coping through science fiction not unlike rosewater or billy himself--a literal portrayal of the bard's poor player, for billy frets in a "constant state of stage fright... because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next." (22) there is, however, a greater import, i think, than the literal. billy is on a pilgrimage to find meaning in life; not unlike vonnegut himself, billy is skeptical of the comforts offered by conventional religions. rosewater relates for him one of trout's novels, the gospel from outer space, which questions the validity of the christian mythos, and the accuracy of its supposed message. (104) vonnegut tells us early that as a child billy had an "extremely gruesome" crucifix affixed to his wall--a "pitiful" christ that "died horribly." (36) later we find that billy abandons going to church. (81) it is this fixation with the omnipresence and finality of death that drives vonnegut's narration--"and, even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death." (4)--and it is certainly related to his decision to discuss the inhumanity of mans inventions, as opposed to the inhumanity of man. billy's emotional and philosophical pilgrimage is completely unsuccessful because he finds no answers... until he is taken by the trafalmadorians. it is with them that he learns the truths--about fate and free will, and the structure of time--that fully realize him as a person and a character...

but we'll get to that later.

for now, a fun exercise might be to start exploring billy as a christ figure. is there imagery to support such a supposition? if there is, how far does vonnegut take the analogy, and why? here it would be appropriate to launch a brief discussion of vonnegut's religious skepticism--and reading cat's cradle wouldn't hurt. i'll be saving these ideas for our final discussion point.

for our next session, take a look at the structure, if any exists, of the narrative that encases our poor player pilgrim. is there a logical progression, or is it simply an incoherent mishmash--one way or the other, what do you suppose was vonnegut's purpose in this structure, and was he successful?