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Slaughterhouse-Five Chapter 9, Section 33 Summary

  • The debate at the radio show is over whether the novel is dead. (Believe it or not, this has been a discussion between public intellectuals and writers for most of the 20th century.)
  • Billy then gets to speak, and he tells the world about the Tralfamadorians and Montana Wildhack and all the rest of it.
  • He's booted out of the radio station during a commercial break.
  • He goes back to his hotel room and falls asleep with the Magic Fingers working.
  • He wakes up on Tralfamadore with Montana Wildhack, who is breast-feeding their baby.
  • Billy tells Montana that he has been walking around Times Square and that he watched part of a porno she was in.
  • Montana says okay. She says she has heard about what a clown Billy was during the war.
  • There is a silver locket hanging between Montana's breasts that holds a picture of her mother. Engraved on it are the words, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference" (9.33.21).
  • (Does this ring a bell? You might remember that Billy's optometry office has the same saying framed on the wall in Chapter 3, Section 13.)