"junoblairb" Said:
So it goes.

"ozoneocean" Said:

Dammit! THat's just what I was thinking... Back to Tralfamadore.

favorite quote from Slaughter House 5 Said:
He because slightly unstruck in time, saw the late movie backwards then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story goes like this:
American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from the airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for the wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation. The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathering them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored in neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and flames. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.
When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken back from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them in the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anyone again.
The Americans fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. and Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed.

"ccs1989" Said:

Damn, I don't think I ever read that book. I have to read it now. Brilliant passage!

That's the mastery of Vonnegut's writing. He writes about things that are so absurd, yet at the same time on another level you think "That's the way things should be..."