Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut, is a novel focusing on the life of Billy Pilgrim. Billy, a POW and very, very average. He's weak, not to mention not the sharpest tool in the draw. The story skips through times of his life. It constantly bounces from being in the war, to after the war, to when he was a kid.
I'm actually really confused at this point in the book. He's captured by these alien beings, some sort of mystical creatures that can see through the past and present; Billy is some-what enlightened by them.
In the army, Billy was an outcast. He was ridiculed for not actually fighting in the war, there for many people disliked him. The fact that's he's very wealthy after the war is interesting because he came from nothing to something. However, I don't think that this is the message of the book, since I'm only on page 90. I think that the aliens will change the message of the book, though I'm not sure when or what it will be. All I can think about are the aliens, and how randomly they just show up out of nowhere. The fact that time is no object to these creatures shows that it will probably have an impact on Billy's life. Perhaps, it will change his perspective on war, and what the meaning of his existence is. For now, I'm not really sure.
