With the statement at the end of Chapter one, and beginning of Chapter 2: “Billy has become unstuck”, I get the feeling that the main character of the book, might actually be tied to Vonnegut himself. Vonnegut´s writing process is cyclical, like his altered perception of time. When he says Billy has become unstuck, he is actually referring to the point in Billy´s life where he had his first “time travel”, but as Vonnegut´s writing is related to time, I think it could represent himself saying something like “finally I could start wringing”.
During Chapter 2, the narrator tells us the background of Billy´s story. He was born in 1922, and in 1967 survived an airplane crash that caused him to go crazy and talk about being kidnapped by aliens, where his perception of time was altered. Vonnegut also introduces Billy´s daughter, Barbara, who has grown old in spirit due to her father´s ill mental state. Then, the story continues to tell the reader about how things led to Billy´s first “time travel”; which in my opinion was just death´s delirium.
Billy had tagged along three American soldiers, who called themselves The Three Musketeers. While traveling through the Luxembourg forest, Billy leans against a tree, and in his exhaustion, he experiences a time warp in his mind. I don’t have clear if he travels to the future in his mind, but if I’m right that the present was 1944, then he did travel to the future. Seeing glimpses of what his life could be, instead of the suffering he was living in the Luxembourg forest. As a result of this delirium, the two scouts from The Three Musketeers, decide to ditch Billy and Weary (the other guy from the group that always pushed Billy to keep going).
Since the beginning, Vonnegut reveals the beginning, the middle and what could be the end of Billy´s story. Making us see his life, not as a sequence of linear moments, but rather his whole life as one. Understanding the instability and confusion of Billy as he jumps from time to time in his life.
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