Question 3

The book is written out of order to say that there is no such thing as time. It is significant because it says that the past, present, and future are all happening, always will be happening, and always have been happening. He decided to write his novel in this order because he is making the argument that there is no such thing as time. With the book going out of order the reader realizes that a story does not need to have one event flow right after another in order to be understood. Because all time is constantly occurring, Billy is able to travel to any point in his life. Billy says “so it goes” every time somebody or something dies. He says this because when somebody dies this is the way that it was meant to be. The person is still alive in the past but they are dead now and in the future. It is just the way time works; there is nothing anyone can do about it so he just says “so it goes.”