These excerpts introduce Kurt Vonnegut's landmark novel, which explores the traumatic aftermath of the fire-bombing of Dresden during World War II by blending autobiography and science fiction. The complex narrative centers on Billy Pilgrim, a veteran optometrist who experiences his life and the universe non-sequentially, having come "unstuck in time." Through Billy's fragmented perspective, the novel contrasts the horrors of the war—including the eventual execution of the captured soldier Edgar Derby—with the detached philosophy of the alien Tralfamadorians, who teach that all moments exist forever. The narrator dedicates the work to his war buddy’s wife, who helped him realize that soldiers were just "babies" in a children's crusade, cementing his goal to write an uncompromising anti-war book. The text includes numerous reflections on the difficulty of writing about a massacre and uses the phrase "So it goes" to comment on the finality of death. Ultimately, the source establishes the central themes of fate versus free will and the pervasive, senseless nature of violence.

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.