Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

So it goes. I should have kept a tally the number of times I read that line. Because  I'm curious, not because I think it's a brilliant idea, or because I think someone hasn't done it before. I simply think it would make me think more about about the times Vonnegut chose to use the phrase. Consider what he was saying it about. Because it he could have written it more, so why did he write it in those places?

I read Slaughterhouse-Five when Out of Print was having a bookclub. Or was it because it was Banned Books Week? Or both? I don't know. Either way it was like two years ago, and it was the first Vonnegut I'd read since high school (the epic short story "Harrison Bergeron"). From what I remember, I liked the book, although at times I struggled with following the narrator and the story line. Much like Fitzgerald (and even Fleming at times) I was drawn to Vonnegut's way with words. The way he described things was vivid and real without being mundane or extravagant. Here are some of the passages that particularly

The elevator door on the first floor was ornamental iron lace. Iron ivy snaked in and out of the holes. There was iron twig with two iron lovebirds perched upon it. 11

I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone. 5

We went to New York World's Fair, saw what the past had been like, according to the Ford Motor Car Company and Walt Disney, saw what the future would be like, according to General Motors. And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep.  23

 Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?" 24

This was a fairly pretty girl, except that she had legs like an Edwardian grand piano. 37

The queer earth was a mosaic of sleepers who nestled like spoons. 90

He ate a pear. It was a hard one. It fought back against his grinding teeth. It snapped in juicy protest. 126

He had a tremendous wang, incidentally. You never know who'll get one. 169.

The heartburn brought tears to his eyes, so that his image of Campbell was distorted by jiggling lenses of salt water. 207

She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies. Men looked at her and wanted to fill her up with babies right away. 218

I also tried to keep track of the books mentioned in the novel. I got quite a few, although I don't claim it to be exhaustive. The books, and when they are mentioned, would have made an interesting study.I also noted a few areas where Vonnegut talked about writing. A trafficker in climaxes? God that's good stuff.

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay

Dresden, History, Stage, and Gallery by Mary Endell

Celine and His Vision by Erika Ostrovsky

Words for the Wind by Theodore Roethke 

The Giddeon Bible

Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann

Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
The Brothers Karamazov by Feodor Dostoevsky
Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension and other novels by Vonnegut's fictional author, Kilgore Trout

As a trafficker in climaxes and thrills and characterization and wonderful dialogue and suspense and confrontations... 6

I taught creative writing in the famous Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa for a couple of years after that. I got into some perfectly beautiful trouble, got out of it again. 23

Those beloved, frumpish books gave off a smell that permeated the ward--like flannel pajamas that hadn't been changed for month, or like Irish stew. 128

That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book. 160

Finally, it's worth noting where we learn about 'So it goes.'

When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad conidition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So it goes.' 34