A Bold Destiny (Candide Chapters 1-5)

What most highlights in the novel is the way in which it is told. It is an uncommon way to narrate a novel since everything that is important, or at least important changes, are told in a brief way as if to not give them importance. It can be inferred that the material and physical life of Candide is not what eventually matters, but his actually mind an senesces towards the world and situations. He describes events as passing by, and fortunes of time: "After being turned out this earthly paradise, Candide wandered off without thinking which way he was going" (Candide 22). As it is axiomatical, Candide has just past from living in "the most beautiful and delightful of all possible mansions" to wandering off into the streets of uncertainty. It is a small sentence making a big change.

Amazingly enough, in Candide, free will and liberty are mentioned prematurely in the first pages of the novel. This is obviously because, Voltaire was most famously known as an Enlightenment writer, in which he expresses the indispensable needs of civil liberties.

So reflecting this in Candide, he evidently shows the opposite of free will when Candide is charged in the Bulgars court because of running away: " It was useless to declare his belief in

Free Will and say he wanted neither; he had to make his choice. So, exercising that divine gift called Liberty he decided to run the gauntlet thirty-six times"(Candide 24).

Voltaire expresses with this that their is no actual Liberty, at least not in the world he lived in.

Ultimately, as I expected to find, this novel contains somewhat of a satire tone, since it employs irony in a serious manner, after Candide finds Pangloss, and tells him about the destruction of the mansion: "As for the house, not one stone was left standing on another; not a barn was left, not a sheep, not a duck, not a tree" (Candide 28).

Irony is seen as the mansion is remembered as a beautiful place, and the reader looses hope as Candide is kicked out of it, but this actually saves his life. So he is saved by a bad scene, and also as the beautiful home is destroyed, with its integrants, brick by brick.

What We Materially Take For Granted (Epitectus Sec 25-30)

We often omit the simple, but valuable things in the courseof life. We omit them because we think of them as insignificant and as non-important. One of the most common misconceptions is when a person is not invited to a "banquet", as Eptectus refers to it: "Indeed you have something: you did not praise some one you did not wish to praise, and you did not have to put up with the people around his door" (Epitectus Sec 25). So as he wisely refers to this, is that we often do not see, that we win or loose something in life. If you are not invited to a banquet, you do not loose at all, since your attention is not diverted from yourself towards the obnoxious host. You save your attention, it is not wasted. Anyways you are prived of the banquet, but the ones who attended it, had to pay a price, that you still conserve. 

In a higher state, obviously regarding people, humans we tend to do the same thing. When we brag about being fair to the neighbor, and understanding the neighbor it is actually facetious, because we really do not feel any pain or true grief, because it has not happened to myself, it is only the neighbor: "Someone else's child is dead, or his wife. There is no one would not say, "It's the lot of a human being." But when one's own dies, immediately it is, "Alas! Poor me!" (Epitectus Sec 26). Unfortunately, this is true, we will never feelanother person's torment, for it does not lie in our mind, in our hearts, in our souls.

The Face Of Reality: A Time Traveling Letter, An Idea

To my friend Robert Frost:

Dearest comrade, I should question your acts of free will, no further since you have taken the correct path. You understand how the will in a human being works, and you comprehend the path that roots in life. You have explored the boundaries that the human mind undertakes under a lifetime's pressure to take the correct will or path in life, assuring that there is actually no free will. We can't stray from the path. We can choose different and dark ones, but it will always be on a path be it rocky or smooth. 

Robert, your poem "The Road not Taken" explores these possibilities to their maximum. You have achieved understanding of my text, my handbook. 

Farewell good friend, and keep on writing the way you do.

Truly yours,

Epitectus A.D 55.  

Let The Horror Become The Common (Epitectus sections 21-26)

As Epitectus goes on enlightening us with his knowledge about how virtues in a man can change and as well his points of view. Everything can be seen with different eyes. so focusing on this, Epitectus mentions: "Let death and exile and everything that is terrible appear before your eyes every day, especially death; and you will never have anything contemptible in your thought or crave anything excessively" (Epitectus Sec. 21).

Not many people realize how true and significant this is in a human's life. It would completely change the way people viewed death, hence changing the morbidness and darkness about dying. It is actually a simple excercise more of the mind and conciusness than of anything stronger such as the soul or anything resembling it or any divine power.

You just have to understand, and picture life without that person, or object. It works, by making death or actually anything that upsets you into something daily and common, like taking a shower. We don't get scared every morning of getting our skin wet, because we do it every day, and we know that our skin and hair can be dried up.

This is the same. Death can also be dried up. Maybe not with a towel, but something poetically resembeling it. If you entertain any thought for a correct amount of time, the craving of it becomes a routine, hence not wanting it and desiring it as you prevoiusly did. It is just a routinary mind game, that only does the simple task, to help you get over death.

Indiosyncratic Judgement (Epictetus Handbook sections 1-20)

What Epictetus makes reference is actually true. "What upsets people is not things themselves, but their judgements about the things" (Epitectus). I would like to open with this, and specially about death. It is often that we see death as a bad thing. In this, Epitectus has a point. we don't know what happens after death, ther is no reason for us to refer to death as a dangerous and frightful word. Maybe after we die, there is some kind of Paradise, and all the way long, we have been daring to die. We tend to view everyhting that we think "bad" will always harm us. 

Epitectus alludes mainly to this: "Remember that what is insulting is not the person who abuses you or hits you, but the judgement about them that they are insulting. So when someone irritates you be aware that what irritates you is your own belief (Epitectus). 

What does he really mean by this? Is it really true that what they say is not really what hurts, but rather the attitude,the tone, and the voice? It is is your own belief on irritation, because what is actually irritating you, is the fact that that person is yelling at your face, or punching you for any kind of reason. So it means that our brain is actually telling us: "Hey, this guy is abusing me", and so this is the reason it bothers you. 

It is the simple fact that they are actually abusing or hurting no matter what. 

"Remember that you are an actor in a play, which is as the playwright wants it to be: short if he wants it short. If he wants you to play a beggar, play even this part skillfully" (Epitectus). 

So what this means is that even if you are asinged by God-or destiny any job, you might as well do this right. Any job, be it simple, or humble must be done correctly, with the best efforts in mind. Mediocracy is not accepted. You are asigned a street sweeper, and there  is nothing you can do about it. You might just sweep the street the best you can do it, so at the end of the day, you feel satisfied that you did a good job, even when you are just a street sweeper. It is amazing! To feel satisfaction even by doing a cheap job. Yes, it is possible. You don't have to be the president to be satisfied, you just have to be yourself. 

In the end, life is how you judge it, and how you interpret it. It's a book full of messages. You can interpret anyway you please, and anyway you feel is what you want to percieve. 

The Final Doubt (SHV chps 9-10)

This is the ultimate showdown in Billy's personality and charisma. It is again an example of impressions and being alive. When he is in the hospital in Vermont, people think-and say he is dead. But he is far from this, he is actually aranging his tactic to reveal to the world his experience with the aliens. It is strange how like in this and many other situations, you get to see and hear what other people think about you and have the time to appreciate you in the current condition you are. He was dead physically. They saw him as a deaad man, but what always has mattered in Billy Pilgrim is his mind. His fabulous mind. "Actually, Billy's outward listessness was a screen. The listlessness concealed a mind which was fizzing and flashing thrillingly. It was preparing letters and lectures about the flying saucers, the neglibility of death, and the true nature of time... Professor Rumford said frightful things about Billy within Billy's hearing, confident that Billy no longer had any brain at all."(SHV pg 190)

Now this, through me off completely: "The name of the book was The big Board. He got a few paragraphs int it, and then he realized that he had read it before-years ago in the veteran's hospital. It was about an Earthling man and a woman who were kidnapped by extra-terrestrials. They were put on display in a zoo on a planet called Zirconia 212."(SHV pg 201)

Okey, first of all Vonnegut doesn't explain this passage at all. He introduces it, and then he does his classical "And so on"(not literally). He is divulging his mystery of Billy's story. Why does he do this to the reader? Are we supposed to know why or how this is? It is so sudden that it strikes us, and we have no protection against this at all. something else is the name of the planet: "Zirconia". This means diamond. Is tis some time of message inferring to the german diamond? Vonnegut creates this "enygma" on porpuse to leave us clu less, and wanting more as always. 

And to compensate my previous entry on irony: 

"Two Roman soldiers came into the shop with a mechanical drawing on papyrus of a device they wanted build by sunrise the next morning. It was a cross to be used in the execution of a rablle-rouser. Jesus and his father built it. They were glad to have the work. And the rabble-rouser was executed on it. So it goes."(SHV pg 202) 

This is extremely ironic, for Jesus, as we all know dies in the cross, and he is commanded to craft one himself. It is some how like digging your own grave. It is "over ironical" and some how Vonnegut has to mean something deper than just Jesus and a time machine. I am hungry to find the deeper meaning. 

Robotic Crusade (SHV Chp 8)

In this chapter, my favorite passage was: "...use of burning jellied gasoline on human beings. It was dropped on them from airplanes. Robots did the dropping. They had no conscience, and no circuits which would allow them to imagine what was happening to the people on the ground."(SHV pg 168). 

I like it, since Vonnegut's inference with this allegory of war and how people gradually become robots, war machines. As a robot, we lose our hearts, and we transform our way of live, centering it in killing and destruction. Uncapable of feeling, we destroy, reck, and bomb. A button, a lever. That is all it takes, but as gravity plays the game, we don't realize the destruction we create. The fire, death. Hell. 

It resembles a brain wash from the moment of birth. For example, Muslim children are tought into believing that the west is the enemy, the total enemy, no matter what. They are robots, uncapable of feeling or knowing anything else. This is their truth.    

A Waste Of Time

To begin with (the cluster of critiscism is substancial), this "David Crystal" has not one, not a single interesting blog entry in his entire Blog. It is simply amuzing. Maybe it's me, but this whole page iis a waste of bits, and Wi-Fi. It is just an insult to my computer. Maybe it is just the way he thinks, or it is just the fact that I don't like this guy's name. 

For example: "If there is a queue of 5 people, which person is second from last? person 3 or 4?"(Crystal, March Entry). This is simply an arguement to entertain one's mind for a while and t think about it, for the simple fact, you have nothing else to do! I simply don't care if I'm first, last, fifth, twenty second, or not even standing in the line! This is an empty arguement used to dispose any kind of real and valuable thought you can have. 

I could simply go on, and on how every entry since 2006 begins with: "A correspondent writes", and how each and every post brings you emptiness, and back to the same problem, not even having resolved the question in the first place.

For instance: "The distinction between life and death can be a bit fuzzy, when applied to language." (Crystal, August Entry). Who is he to ask, or propose these questions? Life and death? Not even the greatest sages! The "distinction of life and death" "BIT FUZZY". Give me a literary brake please. I just can't go on. I'm sorry. 

Ironic, Grinding War (Chps 6-7 SHV)

Normally war has two sides. Sides that shoot in opposite direction saving their own bottoms, and as well protecting their country and their fellow country-men. But after finding this particular case as Vonnegut describes it, I realize that wars have more than two sides:"He was marking the boundary between the American and English sections of the compound... It was a familiar symbol from childhood." (SHV pg 144). fighting a common enemy, always there will be division within alliance, it is what Vonnegut transmits, some kind of racism that makes union impossible even within friendly rifles. It is human isolation, and the incapability of being able to bond with other beings. It is almost like one for one, and all for none. 

Something that is said, and is very wise indeed, is that in order to maintain self confidence, and a sane mind, your physical mind and psyche, the reflection of yourself to yourself plays a big role. "If you stop taking pride in your appearance, you will very soon die." (SHV pg 145). This is realistic for what you physically see is what gives you the impresion of being alive or dead. It's the reflection of your mood and spirit. It shows the will you have to move on and live. Desire to exist. Ultimatelly it is what you think of yourself and what others will see at first glabce from you. They will see you alive or dead. 

Finally, the most vivid image I had in this chapter was this one, that Vonnegut describes:

"The axles of the cart were greased with the fat of dead animals."(SHV pg 157). It could obviously be inferred as a metaphore, describing how like the grease of the Jews and Gypsies was used as soap and candles, the grease of the animals, indirectly helped to make the axles of the wheelbarrow go smooth, and so the wheels can spin and spin, making it easier to push. But the big picture is actually how death, and casualties in war, as a matter of fact help the parties in many ways. either from starting a long wanted war, from a massacre to political news and totally altered propaganda agianst the opposite party. It is a convenient, ironic war. Isn't it?

The Mental Mascaraed (SHV Chp 5)

In the following chapter, Vonnegut gives us an alluring view of the minds of the protagonists. The are unvealed from the interior, out. "It was about people whose mental diseases couldn't be treated because the causes of the diseases were all in the fourth dimension, and three-dimensional Earthling doctors couldn't see those causes at all, or even imagine them."(SHV pg 104). This is the reflection of a state of mind incomprehensible to the typical character in the novel. For example the unexplicable weeping of Billy in the evenings. It is over the usual thought and stereotype of the characters. It's the disease that makes the novel interesting, the mind eating interest that gathers its thought, its nucleus in the rareness, and eccentricity of all setting and time. This is the fourth dimension, the disease that is not a disease, but an advance in evolution, to a different brain and different eyes. 

A human "revelation" is also described, as Vonnegut puts it in context. We fight here on earth, on our third dimension to strive in war or in peace. We venture into believing the universe's fait is put in our hands. But oh, no. Vonnegut has the decency to give other forms of life (if existing) the benefit of actaully being better than us. So referring to Vonnegut's clever scenario, he mentions: "How- how does the Universe end? said Billy. "We blow it up, experimenting with new fuels for our flying saucers. A Trafalmadorian test pilot presses a started button, and the whole Universe disappears." (SHV pg 117). It is as simple as that. Not from wars, or a disaster, or hunger, or disease. Just a button. A simple button, and Boom. The end. 

BarcaLounger of the Trafalmadores

In A Mirage (SHV Chps 3-4)

In the upcoming chapters Billy evolves, revealing more of him and his life to the reader than in the first few pages. It's like actually meeting a real person. As he tells his experience in war, I realize he is not a war like person, he never was, is or will be. He went throught it as one goes through a street, jus t accepting what crosses it, and what runs through it, non stop. 

"It's all just crazy. None of it's true!" "It's all true." Billy's anger was not going to rise with hers." (SHV pg  29). With this it is perspicuously seen that Billy's thoughts have no argument. He is convinced of what he saw, and will never be proven otherwise. He doesn't have the need to argue, hence, he has no point to prove it to anyone, not even his daughter. He was abducted by Trafalmadorians. For sure. 

In the war, in the chilly lake it is ironic how Billy has no problem being beaten up by an American. After all he is prepared to face death any moment in his delirius life. He just lets the kicks pass trhough his body as the cold passes through his feet in the freezing lake. Inevitable. 

"The soldiers blue eyes were filled with a bleary civilian curiosity as to why one American would try to murder another one so far from home, and why the victim should laugh." (SHV pg 51). 

As far as I have read in the novel no religius aspects have been mentioned. Pilgrim is not exactly a religius man, and does not seek salvation in God's arms. So, It is curius how Vonnegut mentions, or at least insinuates tha the "bullet proof bible" is seen more as actually bulletproof, as if when you put it in your left side coat pocket, as if it were to save you from a deadly shot to the heart. "A bullet proof Bible is a bible small enough to be slipped into a soldiers breast pocket, over his heart. It is sheathed in steel." (SHV pg 54). It could be taken more deeply, as if soldiers where only to use it to save their skins, not even bothering to read it. 

Another irony in the novel (and more yet to be found...) is the following: "Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future." (SHV pg 60). For off course Billy can do this! He does it all the time. Maybe not physically, but he sails through time, every second. blinks and goes from POW camps, to warm beds and marriages in New York. Perhaps he can't actually change destiny when he does it, but rather lives parts of his life not in the corresponding, natuarl order. The past can't be changed, but for the present and the future, it can be easily done. You just have to turn a round in the street to change the present, and be prepared to live the future. Nut yes, the point is made. What is meant to happen, happens. the future, The present, and the past are unchangable, because they happen the way they happen and are meant to be that way. Time is unchangable, he lives on. 

Even though Billy's life had not been based on the war, he sees it everywhere. Not ina paranoic and lunatic sense. But with what I think is a metaphore: "The wedding had taken place that afternoon in a gaily striped tent in Billy's backyard. The stripes were orange and black." (SHV pg 72), he demonstrates how subtle life can be. Ironic. A merry weding day, turned to a prisoner of war banner. A coincidence in nature. A stabbing one. Life and war are bothe hard. like the old saying goes: "Life is a battlefield". 

Finally I am convinced that Billy is definitively not a soldier and not supposed to be in war, and all heavens point to it. "They were soldiers' coats. Billy was the only one who had a coat from a dead civilian. So it goes." (SHV pg 82). He is not meant not be in war, but somehow it is relevant for what happens in his life, for his type of person.

And so it goes.

A Bizarre War (SHV chps. 1-2)

The very first slice of the novel is extremely excentric. You excpect a war novel with blood, death, and destruction but it is really a novel that is rather self analyzing in the sense that it doesn't describe war in the big picture, but in a very specific point of view form one single man. 

One of the most interesting themes is time. Time runs and doesn't stop. A second ago is history. We are history, the past. In the novel I could sense the loss of time being critical, and even more loosing it in war. "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time"(pg 23). 

When the author talks about the alien kidnapping and time in the alien land being years and yaers, but on Earth only a milisecond, it basically means how hard life has been, but how quick and brief it can be described avoiding all pain and unecessary details that only make the story longer and boring. Finally, until now the other observed theme is how everything in life became simple, swift, not mattering. 

Refering to the novel in the part where birds are first introduced: "Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is except for the birds." (pg 19). This could be compared to many Holocaust novels, where even when the people were suffering in the labour and death camps, and were hungry, the sun was shining bright, and the weather was splendid. It is the same as with the birds. They don't care if there is a massacre or not , the birds will always sing. Even after war, the memory lives on, and hunts each and every one of them down in a certain way. After it ends it lives on with you and changes the way you are. This is why it is a bizarre war.