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PARTISAN REVIEW
133
Billy is a Vonnegut hero-a vaguely dissatisfied dupe in a flabby society.
Though he is a blank and stupid man, his humanity has survived not
only the holocaust but American life. He drives a Cadillac EI Dorado
Coupe de Ville. A successful optometrist, he is a past president of the
Lions Club, but he has a curious mental history (nervous breakdowns,
battle shock) and has come "unstuck in time":
He has walked through a door
in
1955 and come out another in
1941. He has gone back through that door to find himself in 1953.
He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays ran–
dom visits
to
all events
in
between.
The novel is not
limited
to
the massacre of Dresden, but can travel'
through Billy's empty marriage, and the milieu of the American busi–
nessman which Vonnegut does easily and well, to the planet of Tralfa–
madore. The device is so literal; it is fancy doing the work of imagina–
tion. Imagine, if you will-this simple modern day holy fool, Billy Pil–
grim,
set
in
a cage where the little Tralfamadorians observe him perform–
ing his quaint earthling functions. But I prefer not to: for me Dresden is
fantastic enough: the science fiction should have been left on the cutting
room floor.
The story of Dresden is magnificently told, as perfectly written as
any re-creation of the horrors of war, subtle about history, impassioned
about the fate of individuals. Why didn't Vonnegut deal with it directly
instead of using it as an overlay for one of his ordinary pieces of
science fiction? And the ordinary Vonnegut is so much like H. G. Wells
of such mildly fanciful novels like
The History of Mister Polly
or
Chris–
tina Alberta's Father.
Billy Pilgrim, exactly like Wells' heroes, is a modest
widower; while he has no argument with the world despite its run-down
morals and emotional vacuity, he is able to invent a world which is
patently preferable.
I don't really care to be amused by Billy as an earthling or Billy's
Babbitry-that is such an easy mark-but Billy Pilgrim as a prisoner
of war was worth a whole book. The citizens of Dresden watch the
American prisoners march into town in the makeshift costumes that pro–
tect them from the winter cold:
And then they saw bearded Billy Pilgrim in his blue toga and silver
shoes,
with
his hands in a muff. He looked at least sixty years old.
Next to Billy was little Paul Lazarro with a broken arm. He was
fizzing with rabies. Next to Lazzaro was the poor old high school
teacher, Edgar Derby, mournfully pregnant with patriotism and mid–
dle age and imaginary wisdom. And so it goes.
The eight ridiculous Dresd.eners
~certained
that these hundred ridic-
