Like much of his oeuvre, Slaughterhouse-Five is broken into small pieces, and in this case, into brief experiences, each focused on a specific point in time. Vonnegut has noted that his books "are essentially mosaics made up of a whole bunch of tiny little chips...and each chip is a joke."

When something is absorbed into popular culture - copied, repeated, referenced, alluded to, homaged - going back to the original can feel like nothing special. It influenced our culture so much that the thing that it did is no longer groundbreaking and exciting it is a touchstone for new works that we already consume growing up well past its influence. That's why context and comparative analysis with other works of the time is so important to understanding the place of certain works of art in history.