A Mixing of Novels: Slaughterhouse Five and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

One of my favorite scenes in Slaughterhouse Five was the scene in chapter five where Billy is in the mental hospital. I'm not entirely certain why this scene has captured my fancy, but it's partly due to what his ward-mate Elliot Rosewater brings to the scene. I don't really like Billy Pilgrim much; he's too passive. He doesn't really care about anything, and he doesn't have much of a personality as far as I can tell. Elliot, on the other hand, is a much more interesting character. Especially considering the fact that Elliot Rosewater is actually directly out of another Kurt Vonnegut book that I am currently reading: God Bless You Mr. Rosewater. When I first read his name in the mental hospital scene I thought "hey, that's the name of the guy in the book I'm reading." When Vonnegut mentioned that Elliot Rosewater had also been a soldier and had accidentally killed a fourteen year old German volunteer fireman because he mistook him for a soldier, I was like, "Wait. This must be the exact same Elliot Rosewater. That's kind of odd, why not just make up a new character." Vonnegut just plucked him out of one of his novels and stuck him in another.

Vonnegut actually mixes aspects between the novels God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and Slaughterhouse Five more than once. It's like Vonnegut's novels exist in a world of their own and he just draws different aspects from it for his different books. Kilgore Trout and his badly written sci-fi is also a part of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, which I suppose only makes sense since it was Elliot who introduced Billy to his books in the first place. What really surprised me was that the old "woman attempting to have sex with a Shetland pony" picture made an appearance in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater as well, as the porn of choice of a character's fourteen-year-old son. I mean, really, what's so significant about that photo? It's photo description makes it sound more ridiculous/disturbing than actually "sexy", and I'm not sure what kind of point Vonnegut is trying to make by utilizing that image so readily (if there even is a point at all; I suppose Vonnegut could just have a very limited imagination.) It just seemed to me like an unnecessary bit to consciously include in both novels.

Anyway, back to the Slaughterhouse Five mental hospital scene. Neither Billy nor Elliot really enjoy life or have any desire to continue living on earth. I like the way Vonnegut puts it when he's talking about how Billy covers his head whenever his mother comes to visit and he says "She made him feel embarrassed and weak because she had gone to so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn't really like life at all." It's so matter-of -fact and honest. It's not something you would expect to find in a novel (though Vonnegut is full of surprises). None of the books that I have read have really delved into someone just not liking life on earth, yet its totally relateable. I'm sure  everyone at some point has thought that maybe life wasn't worth it. Of course, Billy has a typical, childish, passive reaction to not liking life and just covers his head with a blanket. Elliot pretty much has decided that life is pointless as well, but I really like his way of approaching it. he tries different things and actually does some searching to try and improve his outlook on life. I really like the interaction between Billy's mother and Eliot where he was trying being ardently sympathetic with people to see if that made life more enjoyable. It's such a seemingly genuine interaction, though for all we know Elliot doesn't care at all and is just giving generic answers (as Vonnegut puts it, "loving echoes") and supporting everything Billy's mother says, replying with things like "That's a good thing to do." and "A boy needs a father." It sounds like it could be a very real, and touching conversation, but it's so empty and void of actual content. I can't pinpoint exactly what I appreciate about that hollow interaction, but perhaps it's just the optimism.

I didn't really like Elliot Rosewater in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater nearly as much as I like his appearance in Slaughterhouse Five. In "his" book I suppose you could call it, Elliot is just a really rich heir who drinks, runs around as a volunteer fireman in some tiny little town in Indiana named after his family, and pretty much runs a psychiatrist hotline on the phone in his office to whoever feels like calling him. His family and everyone at the company he's inherited thinks he's insane, his former wife appears to have been emotionally damaged by antics. In Slaughterhouse Five, however, there is less triviality about him and more depth. He seems much more respectable and down to earth, though he may not like living on it.