First impressions of Kindred

From the little bit of the book that we have read, I once again see Kindred as a different kind of novel from the previous ones that we have read. I am starting to really enjoy this because the genres of postmodernism and history as fiction are in all of the books we have read but at the same time they are all radically different. Ragtime was more like a history book narration without much emotion shown by the narrator. Mumbo Jumbo was the exact opposite with the author often interjecting. Slaughterhouse-Five was even more different yet with a self evident, self deprecating narrator. Kindred is more of a traditional novel in my opinion. We have the elements that postmodernism is built on (with the time travel sci-fi and the historical fiction) but at the same time it follows traditional story telling. Also, there aren't many instances where you could jump out and say that something is historically inaccurate. Obviously Dana never time traveled but what I mean is that the historical aspect of Kindred is more in the setting than the events. In Mumbo Jumbo, Ragtime, and Slaughterhouse-Five we have specific events that we can dispute factually but Kindred's storyline strays away from this criticism. In this sense, Kindred is most like Slaughterhouse-Five because it is about fictional characters in a real setting (also the time travel bit).
Another way that Kindred is like more traditional stories is the actual plot. I have seen a few movies and TV shows where a character time travels and has to deal with ancestors or a time era that directly involves their existence. Unfortunately the only show that comes to mind at the moment is an episode of Family Guy in which Peter goes back in time and does things that make his kids not exist anymore but the storyline is a very familier one, unlike the other books we have read.
Overal, as all of the books we have read, I look forward to a change of pace.

So it goes...

As I was discussing in my previous blog post, Vonnegut does something in Slaughterhouse-Five that has raised a lot of varied responses from out class. I am referring to his repetition of "so it goes" every single time that somebody in the book dies. Some people thought that this was very annoying, and it was a pet peeve of theirs. Others said that they found it to be callous and disrespectful (a view that I disagree with wholeheartedly). I think this occurrence in the novel deserves much more analysis.
The most obvious way to frame this comment at the death of every one is to look at it through the view of Tralfamadorian philosophy. It goes very well with the whole viewpoint that death is not an earth shattering event but rather just a moment on everyones timeline. When someone dies physically they never actually die because of the memories and experiences they have created for others. Saying "so it goes'' at the end of each death could be viewed as making the reader focus less on the actual death an more on the rest of that persons lives; it serves as a tool to put death in to perspective. By definition it has to happen to EVERYONE so why not just come to grips with it.
I certainly see this argument as playing a huge role in why Vonnegut chooses to write this at the end of each death. I see another aspect to it as well; a very chilling one. Every time Vonnegut wrote "so it goes", I almost got goosebumps because of how scary that really is. It reminds me of how final life is and that it will happen to everyone, and not in a huge dramatic sequence but more in the form of a whimper. I see this as a man that has seen so much death trying to cope with it, and that in itself voids the disrespectful argument invalid.