Parallel Universes and Mind Games

Since the beginning of the book, I have wondered if Billy Pilgrim´s experiences were real, a product of his imagination, the effect of drugs, or simple crazy talk. I sort of forgot my doubts when engaged the story, but reading Chapter 9 made me remember of what I had wondered when I began the novel. In this chapter, Billy was in New York after escaping from his daughter´s watchful eye. He was walking the streets when he noticed a little store that had, on its display, several novels by Kilgore Trout, the science-fiction author that Billy enjoyed reading so much. He opened two, and interestingly enough, they had a high resemblance to Billy´s own life. The first was titled The Big Board, and it "was about an Earthling man and woman who were kidnapped by extra-terrestrials. They were put on display in a zoo on a planet called Zircon-212." (pg. 201)

What does this remind me of? Possibly the fact that Billy (an Earthling) was kidnapped by Tralfamadorians (aliens) and placed in a zoo with a woman (just like Billy). As he continued to browse through, he found a second title where the main character has a time machine and manages to go back in time to visit Jesus. Basically, this character could also travel through time.

Reading this made me wonder if Billy´s travels were maybe a product of his imagination that had been inspired from all that time at a hospital and all of those science fiction books. Even so, it must have freaked him out to read that everything that is happening to him, that has happened, was imagined by someone else or perhaps occurs in a parallel universe. It enters the realm of The Neverending Story, by Michael Ende, and its mysticism. The surprising thing is that Billy did not seem surprised, as happened during the course of the novel, but this must have had some sort of effect. But perhaps it was just a game played by his mind, such as Rusell Crowe´s character in A Beautiful Mind, or Edward Norton´s in Fight Club. Would this drastically change the story? Would the significance of Billy´s life dimish because these were not actual experiences? I think not. What is important is that someone printed out his life, the narrator of the book wanted to transmit a message and got it through. The moral is what is important, not how or when it happened.