We discussed the Kurt Vonnegut book "Slaughterhouse Five." I only read half of the book, being drawn more to other books I am reading. The abrupt setting changes, the intrusion of aliens with the power to travel forwards and backwards in time and similar aspects of the text made it seem too erratic, disorganized and even clownish.
The book is an exploration of war, the bombing of Dresden in WWII to be exact. The author was captured during the Battle of the Bulge and was a prisoner of war in Slaughterhouse Five in the basement. After the very intense and deadly bombing, he witnessed the result.
The book is full of scenes and examples of cruelty, horror, bloodshed and pain. After most of these, he writes the phrase "so it goes." I only read half of the book but I gather that he does not explain or defend the phrase as a follow-up to something quite bad. We might take "it" in "so it goes" to mean the unfolding of life. It is quite true that life does deliver extremely unpleasant events at times. I assume the author was examining his experience of war and the memories he had of horrors. However, considering how life goes, it seems balanced to state that when someone writes a great story, or scores a lovely goal, or hears "Yes" after a well-delivered marriage proposal, to follow up afterwards with "so, too, does it go."
