Slaughter House- Five (chapter 9)

I was very close to grasping the concept of the book until 'bang', Billy Pilgrim enters a book store and grab a book that is about an earthling man and woman who are kidnapped by aliens and taken to a zoo on a faraway planet. (sounds familiar, doesn't it?)

Billy lives what Trout writes...
In fact, Billy lives other things that he's seen; such as having sex with Montana Wildhack...

What does this mean?

In my interpretation, Billy is mad. Billy went crazy after experiencing many life traumas like the war in Dresden and the plane crash,(which may've injured his head.)

As an escape to all this pain, Billy is forced to create a fictional universe, in which his events don't really have an effect on him. (As he watches segments of his life, over and over again, and yet cannot change them.)

Vonnegut is probably a pessimist or an optimist that gave up. He has suffered in his life and realizes that cannot change anything about it. Not even with the ability of time traveling. Then, as Billy, he is numb to everything that happens around him and the only thing he can say about life is. "so it goes" (meaning that that is the way it is...)

A maxim found throughout the novel supports this idea.

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference."

--Reinhold Niebuhr