Billy accepts the Tralfamadorian advice to look at life’s
nice moments as much as possible. He still does not control his
time travel, but he takes comfort in the foreknowledge he gains
from it. For example, when Valencia declares that she will lose
weight for Billy, he assures her that he likes her the way she is.
Billy actually thinks Valencia is ugly, but he knows from his time
travels that his marriage to her will be comfortable.
Billy’s revelations about Tralfamadore lead us to question
his sanity. It seems possible that Tralfamadore is something that
he merely imagines, especially since he begins reading Kilgore Trout’s science
fiction at a stage in which he feels he is losing whatever grip he
has on reality. He is already unable to live fully in the present
and unable to control his movements backward and forward through time.
Science fiction helps him and Rosewater as they attempt to “reinvent
themselves and reinvent their universe.” Perhaps Billy, unable to
change the fact that he cannot live his life normally after the
war, salvages his sanity by inventing a new understanding of the nature
of time. The Tralfamadorians, who are strongly reminiscent of some
of Trout’s creations, conveniently explain how the whole thing works
and serve as a model for coping in a four-dimensional universe.
People who invent new understandings of the nature of time are seldom
considered sane, but in his own mind, Billy is at peace. Billy probably
suffers from both disillusionment from the war and delusions. While
the delusions may outweigh his disillusionment in terms of his mental
well-being, they perhaps allow him to function, at least part of
the time, in the normal working world.
