Vonnegut and Sebald
his text, he demonstrates that his literary project, dealing with the psychological response to dissolution, can only be achieved using a wide array of tools.
However much both writers struggle to narrativize devastation, they succeed chiefly in realistically portraying the psychological response elicited. Vonnegut does not tell truly Tralfamadorian stories. 29 The human adherence to terminal narrative structure is illustrated in the introduction ‘It begins like this: “ Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. ” It ends like this: “ Poo-tee-weet? ”.’ 30 Yorke argues narrative structure mirrors the internal resolution of psychological conflict. 31 While external narrative is corrupted, internal coherence is preserved. While Billy’s journey is non -sequential, each event is linked as thought is built on association. Billy’s experiences are hyper -realistic as a portrait of internal turmoil. Trauma reshapes one’s subjective perception of the past and future as the self is reshaped. This is nowhere clearer than in Billy’s moment of greatest turmoil as a barbershop quart et is involuntarily associated with the expressions of his prison guards. 32 Unlike the rest of the novel, he experiences the past as memory, showing when confronting his past directly, he experiences greatest disturbance. This shows memory is built on a symbolic narrative of associations. The Tralfamadorians are associated with Pilgrim’s most scarring experiences, which cannot be processed directly. Though imprisoned again, the stimulated experience allows him to heal. War made him guilty; the Tralfamadoria ns’ determinism precludes his guilt. 33 The phenomenological gap between humans and Tralfamadorians allows him to accept the limitations of human perfectibility. 34 Some may argue Billy’s memories are false, yet superficially false memories are crucial in narrativizing complicated experiences and the delusions a person harbours indicate a great deal about how experience has shaped their perspective. Similarly, in The Rings of Saturn the speaker’s thought process is rendered internally consistent through uncon scious association. Rumours about a defunct train over the Blyth lead the speaker into a lengthy discussion about the Qing dynasty. 35 Thus, while the text’s sequences initially seem unconnected, there is sequential cohesion. Clearly, the reality of oblivion precludes narrativization itself. Both writers, to convey the mental reality of the breakdown of narrativization, must reach as close into the black hole as possible without being sucked into unordered oblivion. In conclusion, both Vonnegut and Sebald masterfully depict narrativization flagging under the tragic weight of history. However futile and taxing the task is shown to be, both writers demonstrate the profound personal and social value in persisting. Narrativization is all we have to make sense of suffering. We may have little meaningful to say but the essential value is in honouring the victims and struggling to process the unprocessible. Vonnegut states this conviction clearly in Slaughterhouse-Five by establishing Genesis’ Lot’s wife as an exemplum of human conduct: ‘She did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human’. 36 That, then, is humanity’s distinct redemption. Vonnegut’s
29 Green (2014). 30 Vonnegut 1969: 177. 31 Yorke 2014: 206-207 32 Vonnegut 1969: 144-146. 33 Green 2014. 34 Vonnegut 1969: 93-96 35 Sebald 1995: 137-152. 36 Vonnegut 1969: 18.
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