SlaughterHouse5, Dresden, Photo by Keith Gard

The occasion: A good friend and fellow book-lover is turning 40 next weekend and he and his wife are hosting a birthday party wherein the guests are required to come dressed as their favorite literary characters. My first thought was, well, I’ll just come as myself because aren’t we all as we are just characters acting in our own private narratives? But this overcooked philosophy might be seen as a narcissistic cop out and I’ve already pledged to my doctors I’d keep those to a minimum this year.

So who should I turn into this weekend?

Maybe Tom Ripley, nattily dressed in stolen clothes, carrying a bloody broken oar and convincing everyone that Dickie Greenleaf is still alive, he just can’t bear to see anyone right now? Or what about Olympia Binewski, the albino hunchbacked dwarf from Geek Love, scheming to protect her daughter from the exploitative Miss Mary Lick?

No, it’s got to be Billy Pilgrim from Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. But how to convey the sense that I’ve come unstuck in time? Basically, the novel jumps around in Billy’s life as a prisoner of war in WWII, an optometrist in Ilium, New York, and a human creature on display in a zoo on the planet Tralfamadore. The trick is to find articles of clothing or other elements representative of these moments and then find a way (with either duct tape or Velcro) to stick them on and tear off at random times during the party.

Potential roadblock: Billy Pilgrim is naked while on Tralfamadore. Would my being true to the book break the hosts’ no gift rule?

Potential solution: Represent the planet Tralfamadore by recreating a Tralfamadorian, described in the book as: “…two feet high and green and shaped like plumber’s friends. Their suction cups were on the ground, and their shafts…were usually pointed to the sky. At the top of each shaft was a little hand with a green eye in its palm.”

I believe you can buy a Tralfamordian at any Walmart. KV would be so proud.

Okay, so while I put together my outfit let’s pretend you’re going to this party. Who among your favorite literary characters would you go as and how would you dress?