Quote 16
Billy was preposterous—six feet and three inches tall, with a chest and shoulders like a box of kitchen matches. He had no helmet, no overcoat, no weapon, and no boots. On his feet were cheap, low-cut civilian shoes which he had bought for his father's funeral. Billy had lost a heel, which made him bob up-and-down-up-and-down. The involuntary dancing, up-and-down, up-and-down, made his hip joints sore. (2.13.4)
Oh, hey, check it out—a reference to the title! Or anyway, the subtitle ("A Duty-Dance With Death"). Billy Pilgrim is completely, totally unprepared for war, with his poor physique, lack of gear, and messed-up shoes. But still, he is going because he has to: his dance with death has begun. And this dance is involuntary. As a soldier, Billy has no choice but to follow his orders, no matter how utterly ill-equipped he is for the battlefield. Billy may look like an idiot—or "preposterous," as the narrator calls him—but the real idiots are the guys back home who deployed him to the front lines of a war.
Quote 17
I think of how useless the Dresden part of my memory has been, and yet how tempting Dresden has been to write about, and I am reminded of the famous limerick:
There was a young man from Stamboul,
Who soliloquized thus to his tool:
"You took all my wealth
And you ruined my health,
And now you won't pee, you old fool." (1.2.3-4)
First off, we think it's hilarious that the narrator starts off his quoting spree with a dirty limerick. Second, we find it intriguing that he feels almost compelled to write about Dresden, even though it's difficult, and even though it's taking up valuable real estate in his brain. How might writing itself be a form of therapy? What other reasons does the narrator give for needing to write about the Dresden firestorm? And what does this limerick mean, anyway?
Quote 18
"I think the climax of the book will be the execution of poor old Edgar Derby," I said. "The irony is so great. A whole city gets burned down, and thousands and thousands of people are killed. And then this one American foot soldier is arrested in the ruins for taking a teapot. And he's given a regular trial, and then he's shot by a firing squad." (1.3.19)
The narrator talks about Edgar Derby's real-life execution as though it were a moment of dramatic irony, as though the real war were also the product of an author with a dark sense of humor.