No Beginning, No End..

Talfamadorians describe their reading as “there is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.”  I spent nearly 20 minutes trying to really understand this concept. I kept wondering how it would be possible to read many moments at once.  Then I realized that it’s the perfect description for this book. We are reading many different moments, seeing Billy’s life all at once.  If you think about it, there is no specific order for the story. Billy jumps from time to time, showing us different moments that have no specific relationship between them, no cause or effect. As I read chapter 5 I felt like a Tralfamadorian looking at Billy’s life. Maybe that is the point of the book.  Maybe Vonnegut wants to give the reader the feeling of perceiving life in 4 dimensions. 

  

After thinking about the book for a while, I realized Vonnegut is an excellent writer. He is able to write without a chronological order and still make it easy to understand.  It must be hard to keep the book organized with so much “time traveling”.