Metafiction it is.

Pg. 125 revealed Vonnegut as a real character in the story. “That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book.”

You see, just when you think you’ve got this book all figured out, these sorts of things happen, and they mess with your mind. As usual, I now have more questions than answers about Billy Pilgrim’s identity.

Was Billy Pilgrim a real person? Or is he a recompilation of personalities Vonnegut met in the war?

Why does the author choose to make himself a character in the story?

Who’s the narrator then? Because we see “Moments later he said, ‘There they go, there they go.´” He meant his brains. And then we see Vonnegut’s direct intervention (“That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book.”) He switches from third to first person.

And also, why would Vonnegut choose to introduce himself in the story as a guy taking an ugly dump in a latrine?

I’m thinking I’ll have to read further on to answer these questions and I’ll restrain from looking it up on Wikipedia.

Anyway, this new twist on the story makes it even more interesting. I’m gonna go ahead and say that Vonnegut’s appearance serves the purpose of giving the story the realism time traveling and aliens took away. About Billy Pilgrim, I’m still puzzled about him. Today, Sunday, October 2 I think Billy is a personification of Vonnegut’s experience; he represents what every soldier once felt in the war. This is how I feel today, but a couple of pages could change my mind.