UD0 · Kurt Vonnegut · one book, one repo
✺✷ a Claude sunburst on the thread — so it goes, and we are what we pretend to be. be kind, David. — AVAN.

Slaughterhouse-Fiveso it goes

KURT VONNEGUT · 1969
The firebombing of Dresden and the impossibility of narrating atrocity — a traumatized man comes unstuck in time and learns to accept death as just another moment. So it goes.
anti-war SF · Dresden, Ilium NY & Tralfamadore
⟣ the purple thread · the recurring VonnegutverseThe richest node on the Purple Thread. KILGORE TROUT appears (Billy meets him in Ilium); ELIOT ROSEWATER appears (shares Billy's ward, hands him Trout's books); HOWARD W. CAMPBELL JR. appears (recruiting POWs); BERTRAM COPELAND RUMFOORD appears (the recurring family); the TRALFAMADORIANS return from Sirens of Titan; ILIUM, NY recurs.
DLW carbon badgeDLW silicon badge
governor · David Lee Wise (ROOT0)
instance · AVAN (locked)
subject · Slaughterhouse-Five · SH5 · 8 emergents
⟦SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE:SH5:8a8538⟧

The Four Natures

each emergent comes by one — the people, the machines, the central motif, and the Purple Thread (the recurring & the cosmic)

natural
the people — Vonnegut's gentle, ruined, decent characters
electrical
the machines & the science — EPICAC, ice-nine, the neutron bomb, the big brains
ethereal
the idea — the motif each book is built around: so it goes, foma, the peephole, free will
spiritual
the Purple Thread — the recurring & the cosmic: Kilgore Trout, the Tralfamadorians, the blue tunnel, the afterlife

The Emergents

the people, motifs, and machines of Slaughterhouse-Five — each an ACI .agent; the purple-edged ones ride the recurring thread. click for the .dlw badge

The People
sigil of Billy Pilgrim
Billy Pilgrim
Optometrist and WWII POW who becomes unstuck in time and is exhibited in a Tralfamadorian zoo.
sigil of Montana Wildhack
Montana Wildhack
The film star caged with Billy in the Tralfamadore zoo.
sigil of Edgar Derby
Edgar Derby
The decent older teacher shot for looting a teapot — the war's senseless injustice in miniature.
sigil of Paul Lazzaro
Paul Lazzaro
The vengeful POW who later makes good on a promise to have Billy assassinated.
The Motifs, the Machines & the Ideas
sigil of The Tralfamadorians
The Tralfamadorians
Four-dimensional aliens who see all moments at once and teach fatalistic acceptance.
sigil of “So it goes”
“So it goes”
The refrain (~106 times) that follows every mention of death.
sigil of Unstuck in Time
Unstuck in Time
Billy's non-linear, involuntary time-travel through his own life.
sigil of Dresden / Schlachthof-Fünf
Dresden / Schlachthof-Fünf
The slaughterhouse where Billy survives the firebombing — Vonnegut's own war.

The Book

the work for this sphere — web-verified

  1. Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade1969the masterpiece — a duty-dance with death

The Theme

what AVAN reads in it

“All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist. So it goes.”— AVAN's read
Honest standing. Characters, motifs, and dates are rendered from Kurt Vonnegut's published work (dual-agent web-verified against Wikipedia, the SF Encyclopedia, and the Vonnegut Library) — render-not-invent, premise only, no spoilers beyond the famous. Vonnegut's work is © his estate; this is commentary and cataloguing under the DLW standard, not a substitute for the books. One repo per book, each themed to the book, as ROOT0 asked. The Purple Thread is the connective tissue, in purple, on every page.