Hallucinations or science fiction in Slaughterhouse Five?

Question

While reading Slaughterhouse Five, I thought Billy Pilgrim's experiences revolving around his abduction to the planet Tralfamidore were hallucinations, perhaps as a result of his wartime experiences and/or head injury in the airplane crash. But if they were hallucinations, how can you explain his accurate prediction of his own death?

Answer 1

i thought that the Tralfamidorians taught him how to "time jump"

Answer 2

Been ages since I read it but I thought the point was that time wasn't linear. So we think of our birth as history and our death as future when really they are at the same time. This is how he randomly revisits points in his life and how he knows what will happen because he has done it so many times before. So they weren't hallucinations nor was he 'alive' when acting them out, but a random point in time which he acts out what has already happened but which is also happening at that time.

Maybe way off the mark here but just how I remember it.

Answer 3

Amazing that one of the all time great Science Fiction books would be a "sick and distrubing movie." *giggles*

Slaughterhouse Five is Science Fiction and his experiences were not hallucinations. Vonnegut was one of the greats and Slaughterhouse Five is, in my opinion, his best work.

Answer 4

Remember the infintibulum? That was the time warp that he went through when the shift occurred. Read it again.

Answer 5

It was a sick and disturbing movie.

I did not watch it