Meaningful Art

 The madness in Billy Pilgrim’s life is put under the spotlight. We are now being exposed to an intricate, complex Billy that fears his past. He ignores his mom’s company and lives his life immersed in science fiction books, staying day and night in a veteran’s hospital. This is the year 1948. But this isn’t the present, it isn’t the past, and it definitely isn’t the future. It’s the whole spectrum of his life; we don’t see any chronological order for this doesn’t exist. Moments never come one after the other and what we extract is the big picture. All these ideas really captured my attention.

Billy prepares for his abduction; he already knows they’re coming so he patiently waits. Inside the flying saucer he wants to experience their literature and soon finds himself deciphering something resembling a telegram. This is Tralfamadorian literature. These aliens don’t read consecutive words. Their language consists on forming an image with symbols and just capturing a big picture. It gave the text more depth than any earthling novel could ever create. I connected this immediately with the idea that sometimes images are far more profound than words. “We Tralfamadorians read them all at once, not one after the other. There isn’t any particular relationship between all the messages except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprisingly deep.” The idea of joining together fragments of unrelated material and creating an idea just blew me away. It’s like when we looked at the still painting a few weeks ago. We see a skull, some incense, a sword and other unrelated objects but quickly draw a conclusion. We find meaning behind everyday things you wouldn’t actually look into. Their novels resembled our photographs. Resembled beauty in a perpetual life.