Billy Pilgrim Reaches Nirvana

"The guide invited the crowd to imagine that they were looking across a desert at a mountain range on a day that was twinkling bright and clear. They could look at a peak or a bird or a cloud, at a stone right in front of them, or even down into a canyon behind them. But among them was this poor Earthling, and his head was encased in a steel sphere which he could never take off. There was only one eye hole through which he could look, and welded to that eye hole were six feet of pipe."

The Tralfamadorians believe that Billy is sadly limited by his inability to see that all of time is always occurring and that time itself is not at all linear. But Billy has a much better understanding of the Tralfamadorian idea of time. He cannot see all of time at the same time, but he has become unstuck in time, allowing him to understand that the order of events does not matter. This limited understanding seems to us almost like enlightenment (as in Buddhist enlightenment), even though it is not nearly as sophisticated as the Tralfamadorian viewpoint.

Englightment is a contested term; no one really seems to understand what it means. Western culture has adopted the idea of Buddhist enlightenment to use it in self-help books, but there is a very deep religious tradition based on it in both Buddhism and Christianity. The Buddhist idea of enlightenment seems more in line with Billy's attitudes.So what is Buddhist enlightenment? There are multiple terms for enlightenment that come from the various branches of Buddhism in different regions.

Kensho--"seeing one's true essence".
Bodhi--"to have woken up and understood".
Samyaksambodhi--"highest perfect awakening".
Satori--"comprehension, understanding".

Buddha's enlightenment involved three knowledges. He understood his past lives, how karma and reincarnation worked, and the four noble truths (the truth of suffereing, the orgin of suffereing, how to stop suffering, and the truth behind following that path). In this way, he "attained supreme security from bondage". It has been described as an awakening to some larger reality that most of us never understand.

Billy Pilgrim seems to have reached enlightenment in many ways. He has not escaped suffering so much as accepted and thus escaped it. Billy was a prisoner of war. He was in Dresden. Later, he was in a plane crash and his wife died in the same week. He has had his share of suffering, and he has lived through it. He does not let the sadness take him over on a daily basis; when it does surface, he cannot understand what it is about.For example, it takes him a long time to understand why the barbershop quartet affects him so strongly. "Unexpectedly, Billy Pilgrim found himself upset by the song and the occasion. he had never had an old gang, old sweethearts and pals, but he missed one anyway, as the quartet made slow agonized experiments with chords...Billy had powerfully psychosomatic responses to the changing chords. His mouth filled wit the taste of lemonade, and his face became grotesque, as though he really were being stretched on the torture engine called the rack" (173). The effects of his suffering have made their mark on him, but he worked through it, and as a result of becoming unstuck in time he seems to have reached a strange serenity.

Billy accepts everything. For example, when his father throws him into the pool, he does not attempt to paw his way to the surface: "...he was at the bottom of the pool, and there was beautiful music everywhere. He lost conciousness, but the music went on. He dimly sensed that somebody was rescuing him. Billy resented that" (44).When he was being shot at, he stood there and gave the sniper another chance. He lets his daughter make him feel like a child by patronizing him without getting upset. Everything just seems to drift by him, and he looks at it, understands that it has to happen that way because the moment is structured that way, and lets it go. In fact, this attitude is similar to the attitude that you are supposed to try to adopt when meditating, a practice that is intimately connected to enlightenment. When thoughts come into your head, you are supposed to let them pass you by without judging them, in an attempt to eventually become almost thoughtless. It seems that maybe Billy is living in a constant state of meditation., reaching a state of uninvolved presence that allows him to view the world more calmly.

Wayne and Sinatra in Slaughterhouse-Five?

I was reading through an interview with Kurt Vonnegut in the online version of the Paris Review (the link is at the bottom) and saw that Vonnegut had originally intended to tell his story as "a classy adventure". He really did intend to create a book that would be have roles for Frank Sinatra and John Wayne at the beginning of the writing process:

Others had so much more to write about. I remember envying Andy Rooney, who jumped into print at that time; I didn't know him, but I think he was the first guy to publish his war story after the war; it was called Air Gunner. Hell, I never had any classy adventure like that...Then a book by David Irving was published about Dresden, saying it was the largest massacre in European history. I said, By God, I saw something after all! I would try to write my war story, whether it was interesting or not, and try to make something out of it. I describe that process a little in the beginning of Slaughterhouse Five; I saw it as starring John Wayne and Frank Sinatra. Finally, a girl called Mary O’Hare, the wife of a friend of mine who’d been there with me, said, “You were just children then. It’s not fair to pretend that you were men like Wayne and Sinatra, and it’s not fair to future generations, because you’re going to make war look good.” That was a very important clue to me.

It surprised me that Vonnegut actually thought that he would right the typical war novel; it wasn't really even his intention to write an antiwar novel when he began. The first chapter had not given me that impression at all. I was also surprised that his conversation with Mary O'hare was true. The first chapter is Vonnegut speaking about his experience, but I didn't realize the extent to which he is present. Even the name Mary O'Hare is the same. Another comment interested me as well, all about his experience in the war. When the interviewer asked "What did you do when you got to the front?", he answered, "I imitated various war movies I’d seen."
These two statements made me realize that Slaughterhouse-Five would have been very different if Vonnegut had written it earlier on, just after he had come out of the war. Most of the war books and movies of the time starred soldiers who were patriotic, brave, masculine, and eager to fight on the front lines for their countries (and usually featuring large weapons to demonstrate the power of the United States and the other Allies). If Vonnegut had written Slaughterhouse-Five while he was caught up in the feeling of success of the postwar years, I think he might have written it like a war movie. I wouldn't want to say that he wasn't deeply affected and disturbed by the war at that time; he probably was--I think it would be hard to come back from the war without being kind of messed up. But he was still very young when he came back, and did not, even according to him, fully understand the gravity of what he had witnessed in Dresden.

When the city was demolished I had no idea of the scale of the thing . . . Whether this was what Bremen looked like or Hamburg, Coventry . . . I’d never seen Coventry, so I had no scale except for what I’d seen in movies.

Vonnegut waited all the way until 1968-1969 to write Slaughterhouse-Five. This was right before the Vietnam war, and there was a lot of anti-war protesting at the time which also might have influenced him to write about his experiences from an anti-war perspective. As an older adult, he better understood how young he was when he went to war, especially after he talked to Mary O'Hare. 

She freed me to write about what infants we really were: seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. We were baby-faced, and as a prisoner of war I don’t think I had to shave very often. I don’t recall that that was a problem. 

I don't that Vonnegut could have seen that if he was writing the book in his twenties, because people cannot see how naive and young they are--they can only look back and realize how little they knew and understood in the past. We would undoubtedly be reading a very different book if Vonnegut had written Slaughterhouse-Five in the forties; in fact, I don't think we would be reading it, because it would most likely be less controversial and less creative in its approach.

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3605/the-art-of-fiction-no-64-kurt-vonnegut

The Aten-Aton Connection

I had no idea that the group called the Atonists, to which Hinckle and Hierophant 1 belong, comes from the group of Egyptians who worshiped Aton in the 1300s BC. This was because I've usually seen the name spelled Aten--had the group been called the Atenists, I think it would have been much more obvious.

I think that the most interesting part about this is the reversal of the accepted religions over time. During the time when Ahkenaten was forcing his people to worship Aton as the only God, religions with many gods were more common, and the pantheons of popular gods and goddesses often changed. There were some twenty-nine gods and goddesses in ancient Egypt, and they became more or less popular depending on what the people needed spiritual protection from. When forced to worship Aton, the people rebelled and eventually overthrew Ahkenaten's rule. Later, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism became the most prominent religions, all worshiping essentially the same God, although they called him by different names: God, El, and Allah. Of the 86% of people who consider themselves to be religious, 54% of those define themselves as monotheists, and the some most powerful nations in the world, though often theoretically secular, are built on Christianity and Islam.

As Jes Grew emerges, people are beginning to fight back against the Atonists and their strict rules, just like the Egyptians fougt for their right to worship their many gods. The religion of the Atonists does not, according to Reed, allow them to be close to nature or to sing the right songs or to know the true words. They cannot dance right, just like Set, while the people who are surrendering to Jes Grew are returning to the old ways, to the gods of Egypt and Africa. They are connected to nature and the cycles of the world. This does have basis in the religions; monotheistic gods are usually considered to be watching us from afar, creating everything but not getting involved in it anymore or having feelings, whereas gods from polytheistic religions are more fallible, emotional, and involved in the lives of their believers.

I can definitely see  the connections between the Atonists of Ancient Egypt and the Atonists of the modern world, and it is interesting to see how it could have been carried on through the ages. However, the book does seem to take a very negative view towards the Atonists. This was clear from the beginning, but this connection makes them seem even darker and more misguided. Ahkenaten's rule was a time of great conflict in ancient Egypt, and although monotheistic religions today have caused many problems and wars, they do have more merit that Reed is giving them credit for.

From Rags to Riches in Just a Few Pages

Tateh's life changes so suddenly that it is almost unbelievable. Before he sells his little flip books to the Franklin Novelty Shop in (page 133), he is struggling to support himself and his daughter by working on the street or in the mills for very little pay. Then we hear nothing about him until page 254, when we meet the Baron Ashkenazy and find out that he "had produced dozens of movie books for the Franklin Novelty Comapny. Then he had designed a magic lantern apparatus on which strips of paper printed with silhouettes turned on a wheel...the owners of the Franklin Novelty offered to make Tateh a partner...he sold his interests and went into the movie business...he invented a baronry for himself...his child was dressed as beautifully as a princess. He wanted to drive from her memory every tenement stench and filthy immigrant street. he would buy her light and sun and clean wind of the ocean for the rest of her life" (258-259). That was a long quote, but overall the time spent discussing Tateh's success was just a few pages. This makes it seem like it all happened very fast, although we do not actually know how much time passed between the two parts of his story.

In any case, Doctorow is clearly saying something about the immigrant experience. He even comments directly on it several times, making somewhat ironic-sounding generalizations about success in America as an immigrant. For example, he says "thus did the artist point his life along the lines of flow of American energy. Workers would strike and die but in the streets of cities an entrepreneur could cook sweet potatoes in a bucket of hot coals and sell them for a penny or two" (134). The narrator seems disappointed in Tateh in some ways. Instead of fighting for his rights, he made a living however he could, and succeeded at doing so. he escaped bad conditions, but he didn't work for the greater good. It is easy to imagine a mill worker feeling resentful towards Tateh; Tateh got out and made it big, while the mill worker has protested and been part of the I.W.W. and won against the mill owners, and has only gained "a few more pennies in wage" (130).

Doctorow also seems to be making fun of the idea that you could easily be successful in America by making it seem so easy. I'm not exactly sure why, but it seems pretty clear that Doctorow is not saying "Look, it really is that easy for immigrants to start their own businesses and become really rich". The speed with which Doctorow relates his rise makes it seem unreal, like a dream. Probably it was a dream for most of the immigrants who came to America, and remained one for their entire lives. Doctorow is saying that it was not a reality for most people by illustrating one of the people for which it was a reality.

However, it does seem like the narrator feels some admiration towards Tateh. He is not portrayed as a weak and sort of silly character, like Younger Brother is at the beginning of the book. He seems serious but intelligent before his transformation, and ebullient and jovial afterwards. He had "constructed [his happiness] without help", which is something he can be proud of. he is also clearly an innovative and enterprising man. Thus, although he is in the novelty and entertainment business, his success is respected and Tateh himself is respected.

Overall, Doctorow's depiction of Tateh's rise has mixed meanings. In may ways, the narrator seems to have the perspective of a person who had been born and raised in the U.S. but who worked in a mill or other factory and could not figure out a way to increase his wealth, status, or living conditions. He is jealous and annoyed that Tateh has managed to get out of the system rather than trying to improve it, admiring of his "pluck and luck" that enabled him to succeed, and, in the back of his mind, cognizant that such a rise does not happen to many people.

History = Fiction

It's odd that there is so much controversy concerning the distinguishing features of history and fiction when the two genres have only been separate for a thousand or so years. The Tale of Genji, a massive Japanese book by noblewoman in the Heian period (11th century), lays a claim on the title of "first novel ever written", and so does La Morte d'Arthur, which was written in the western world in the 1460s. Of course, 600-1000 years is a considerable amount of time, but if you consider that humans have been around for about 200,000 years, and that we have been writing for about 5500 years, that doesn't really seem too long ago.

History, for a long time, has been transmitted orally in the form of stories that were probably slightly altered with each retelling. Facts were virtually nonexistent, because dates and even reliable record of events were not completely set in stone (although you could argue that most "facts" about events in history are not really facts because all recollections of occurrences are subjective). Many historical stories were told with elements of fiction; many Greek epic poems could be considered fictional, although they were not novels. Many stories also had morals, and fables have been popular for a long time. So people didn't really distinguish between history and fiction as much as they do now.

Now, we have very clear distinctions between fiction and history that we impose on books. Facts are very important--with such huge databases of historical information, there is not much room for blurring the lines of history in novels, and fictional tidbits cannot be added into historical books (God forbid!). Writers of historical fiction usually have to carefully fact-check, write Historical Notes at the end of the book that talk about all the things they decided to change, and only change things where facts are unclear or absent from the historical record. That is why Ragtime is so confusing. It blends historical figures with fictional facts and events, and maybe fictional characters with real events. It is not history, it is not fiction, it is hardly even "respectable" historical fiction. In a world of about thirty different sections in the bookstore covering all the different types of books, Ragtime is not really anything in particular, which makes us puzzled and mildly uncomfortable. But the question is, why does it make us uncomfortable? Doesn't all fiction borrow liberally from history, and the same for history from fiction? Maybe they are really just the same thing, written in different styles and tones.

Morgan is Europe, Ford is America

Of course, both J.P. Morgan and Henry Ford are American, but in many ways, Doctorow's versions of Morgan and Ford personify the stereotypes that many Americans held at that time (and still today) about Europe and America, and what the "heroes" (or villains) of each culture should be like. Morgan is extremely wealthy, came from a wealthy background, and takes advantage of his wealth in intellectual pursuits and the trappings of royalty. Ford, though no less wealthy, appears to have been brought up in the countryside in a fairly poor family and retains his country manners intentionally. What is not clear though is whether Doctorow is satirizing Morgan, Ford, both, or neither.

Morgan fits the American stereotypes of Europe extremely well. He is part of the old world, and he imitates royalty (most Americans of his time and even in ours would probably have disdained royalty). He "affected fashions slightly out of date" and is surrounded by employees who make "obeisance" and "circl[e] him like birds" (137). The author says satirically that "Pierpont Morgan was that classic American hero, a man born to extreme wealth who by dint of hark work and ruthlessness multiplies the family fortune till it is out of sight" (138). This is not the typical picture of the American hero, and the disdain with which Doctorow seems to write about this is similar to the disdain that many average Americans would feel about wealthy, educated European business tycoons. Most of the descriptions of Morgan make him out to be overly privileged.

Ford fits the stereotype of a countrified conservative, a type of all-American man that we see even today in politicians who are trying to get the American people on their side, despite the fact that he is introducing a new and radical system of manufacturing. He doesn't attempt to educate himself about things that are not really in his line of work, and he is not interested in being one of the chosen ones that Morgan thinks that he is. It seems likely that some of his disdain comes from Morgan's attempt to imitate royalty and to connect himself to the pharaohs. Americans generally do not like royalty; it is the American dream to rise up from lowly conditions to success. Thus it seems that Ford is our American hero.

However, it doesn't seem like Doctorow is really putting it into such black and white terms. We feel sympathy for Morgan because he is so isolated, and when he presents his theories to Ford and is rejected, he is deflated and slightly pathetic. We know his mind, and then is it harder to dislike him. Ford also gains some of the reader's sympathies because he is down to earth and likable (despite his antisemitism). Therefore it seems like Doctorow is not making fun of one or the other, unless he is making fun of both. In any case he seems to be making fun of the idea that Morgan (or Europe) should be considered privileged and bad, and that Ford (or America) should be better because of his affable ignorance and ability to honestly rise to the top. Both men are unquestionably more complicated than that, and both are putting on an act, but the stereotypes are still there and suggest interesting social viewpoints of the time.