We have reached the end of another book. This was a different sort of book then the ones I have been reading in this series. I would say that it is the lightest of all of them but before I get carried away with the totality of the work, today I am going to focus on the last four chapters.

Here is a quick section summary of these chapters. There is a crash of the plane full of optometrists in Vermont. Billy was the only survivor. Then the bombing actually happens. Billy’s wife Valencia dies of carbon monoxide poisoning on her way to visit Billy in the hospital. The war ends for Billy as the Germans flee the Russians

I am struggling to perform a linear read a chapter, note the theme and then write about it. So much so that I went to read what other people was saying about the chapters. The story jumps around so much that it is hard to draw any sort of direct correlation to a strong point.

Some of the analysis I read talked about things like Tralfamadorian theory and drawing analogies to Einstein with four dimensions (X, Y, Z plus time). There was also the very strong antiwar theme, that one seems obvious and is the one that I would pick overall. There is also a bunch of symbolism that is pretty heavily abstracted.

For instance, on analysis I read said that the bird at the end represents the nonsensical-ness of war. I suppose that because the bird is the last thing written and not a character in the book, then maybe I could buy that it does mean something. But there were other speculations where Billy’s hatred of the barbershop quartet was related to the faces of the singers versus the faces of the Germans when they first saw the destruction of Dresden. Have you ever seen the ‘Gilmore Girls’? The show is annoying enough but then when you have the random barbershop quartet interlude into your conversation, it is downright obnoxious. In my experience, a barbershop quartet can be wonderful or downright inappropriate.

I missed this when I read the previous chapter block, the significance of the title. Before I read the book, I made an assumption was the title was going to be something like five individuals participated in some sort of urban firefight. As it turns out, the title is actually the POW’s address. This comes up several times in Billy’s delusional dreams as he goes back and forth between being in the war and other random events in his life.

End Your Programming Routine: I am struggling to find meaningful, consistent themes so I am going to cut it here. I definitely have more to say next week and I don’t think I will be so blasé. Distinguishing a very non-linear story with a specific portion of the book makes it hard to pick appropriate anecdotes. So it goes.