The Aid of Alien Eyes

This weekend I checked out Diego Rodriguez’s blog “Click Here to Continue” and among his entries, I found one with a very interesting interpretation of a little detail in the book. The first time we see the “mustard gas and roses” description is in Ch.1, where Vonnegut describes the smell of his drunken breath as mustard gas and roses. But then in Ch.4, in the night of his daughter’s wedding, before being kidnapped by the Trafamadorians, Billy Pilgrim receives an anonymous call, but nobody talks and the narrator says “he could almost smell his breath- mustard gas and roses”. 

Diego notices this and insinuates that the caller is Vonnegut himself, making Ch.1 a part of the story, and placing Vonnegut as a character in the book. It is an interesting theory and I congratulate Diego for noticing it, because it gives yet another perspective of the book. It reminded me of A Clockwork Orange when Alex and his droogs break into an isolated cottage where he finds a manuscript called "A Clockwork Orange". This I understand is called Metafiction, and I think Vonnegut is making use of that literary device in this book.

This little phone call only makes the reader more confused. I though Billy Pilgrim was a personification of Vonnegut’s war traumas, created, in a way, to materialize his pain so he could physically end it. So, Billy Pilgrim was Kurt Vonnegut. But if Vonnegut is in the story as himself, then who is Billy Pilgrim, what is Billy Pilgrim?

I’m starting to suspect the phone call has a more transcendent than I thought, which leads me to think I should pay even more attention to the little details in the book.

Diego also drew my attention to the actual description of the smell “mustard gas and roses” I can almost feel it in my nostrils. Also, there must be a weird connection between alcohol and flowers (which aren’t exactly the most similar things in the world) because this is the second time I’ve encountered them united in literature. The first time was in a surrealistic book called “Opio en las Nubes” by Rafael Chaparro Madeido, who paints a very particular almost dreamlike Bogota, hard to describe. The book’s characters drink alcohol as much as they breath, and romanticize the concept of a decadent, reckless life. They constantly repeat the phrase “Me gusta el olor de vodka con las flores” (I like the smell of vodka with flowers).

Going back to Billy Pilgrim, I shall pay close attention to the future of the book to see if the phone call has a more profound meaning.