Three words

I am writing a blog for history as fiction class. So it goes. In Slaughterhouse Vonnegut continuously uses the phrase “so it goes”. So far in the book Vonnegut has used this phrase over and over after the death of someone. At first I had different thoughts of how I took Vonnegut using “so it goes” over and over. At first I had to say I thought that this was very rude. I felt that Vonnegut was disrespecting the dead by just glossing over the details. Even though we are not properly introduced to the soldiers that get shot early in the book, it still felt that when Vonnegut quickly ended the scene with “so it goes” the importance of the men were just forgotten. However when we discussed the importance of the words “so it goes” during class, my opinions about this line of words changed. I feel that Vonnegut does not want to dwell on the past traumatic events. Even though the deaths of these men might be painful, we should continue to move on. This idea is shown with the story of Lot’s wife who turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back. I feel that by continuously repeating this line of words, Vonnegut is reminding us of the importance of the people who died. Another way I see the importance of these three words is it shows just how threatening war can be. I feel Vonnegut is making the point there will be death, “so it goes”.  I now see just how powerful these three words are.

Jumbled Mumbling

My first thoughts of Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed were not good ones. I found this book to be simply just weird. The first chapter of the book was before the cover page. If I was not told where the first chapter was I would have totally missed it. Some people might say that this might be a unique characteristic of the book having themes related to the title, however my first impression of this was I found the author was trying to hard in attempt to be unique.

After reading the first nine chapters I had to say I was kinda lost. I did not understand what was really happening in the book. It was not until around chapter five where I started kinda understanding what  Jes Grew was. In the book Ishmael refers to Jes Grew as a type of epidemic which at first I had thought was some sort of sickness. I am still not to sure what Jes Grew exactly is, but my best guess is that it is maybe a type of dance? There are many references to native Americans which also tie into Jes Grew. There seems to be more information that we are not given yet.

As I am an impatient person I can not wait for the book’s plot to move on. At this point I find this book quite dull and confusing. I cant say I am the only one as most of the people in my class also agreed to the points I stated above. There are many subtle things that the author does in his writing which I am looking forward to when I further read the rest of the story. I can’t wait to see where this story takes us.