"So it goes." pg 9... and just about every other page
I'm growing to hate this phrase. It is the sole purpose that I believe the narrator, Vonnegut, has suppressed everything about the war, including death. Later my theory expands to explain that Billy justifies his absence of emotion by making up Tralfamadore. I think he wants answers but cannot cope with the real ones so he's made up a whole separate world that he can escape to when the memories come creeping in. What I dislike about the phrase is that it makes the book completely anticlimactic to parallel Billy's (and now that I think about it, the narrator's) lack of emotion. Everytime war narration is getting good, Vonnegut briefly exaplins the gory parts in a phrase or sentence, says "so it goes" and goes right back to explaining trivial matters in great detail. He's not even trying to get the hard hitting, actual war action into his book! It won't be an actual portrayal of anything besides his twisted version of reality. There's no way the book within the book will be any good.
question to ponder: Billy's characteristics and sayings ("so it goes") are incredibly similar to the narrator's. Could they be the same person?
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