Billy is the only real character in Slaughterhouse-Five

        Okay, not exactly. I’d also consider the tralfamadorians characters, as unrealistic and inhuman as they are. A big theme in Slaughterhouse-Five is that there is an inherent struggle with the idea of there being “free will” in society. As the Tralfamadorians explained, war just is: there’s no point in trying to promote peace because war is something that’s simply fated to happen. Billy is the only real “character” in the book (besides Vonnegut himself, I support) because he’s living what the aliens are saying. Sometimes it’s unclear if, when he’s traveling back and forth in time, that he understands that he’s been traveling, but it actually doesn’t even matter—it just is.
The listless Billy that we see throughout the duration of Slaugherhouse-Five is one that most likely is aware that his situation is “hopeless” in a sense that he’s incapable of changing anything that’s happening to him. Billy is aware that he’s in an “anti-glacier” (in reference to the quote about how trying to write an anti-war book is like trying to write an anti-glacier book; you’re going against something that’s impossible to get rid of) situation. I think one of the most independent decisions that Billy makes during the duration of the book is the decision to try and tell humans about his experiences on Tralfamadore. Upon his attempt at educating the world, he is called a fool by those closest to him, and dismissed as someone who is clearly crazy. If we’re taking Billy’s perspective throughout the novel at face value (which is easy enough, since this is a work of fiction), we know that he did go to Tralfamadore and his experiences are authentic. It’s possible that the message here is that it was fated that the rest of the human population wouldn’t know about the Tralfamadorians, and no matter how much Billy tries, he’s going to continually be met with confusion and doubt.
What counts as someone being a true “character” in the book is their ability to actually make decisions that attempt to go against what is going to happen, regardless of their decision. I’d also make a small case for Edgar Derby—when he stood up for what he believed in against the American Nazi, he was making a small attempt to change his fate. We know that he still ends up getting shot (after several reminders throughout the book), and even though he might not have been self-aware of his fate like Billy, it’s still notable that he made an subconscious effort to distinguish himself from other characters in the novel. Overall, I would say that the model Vonnegut uses--having characters with "free will" (not actually) operating within fate--was an interesting way to make readers question their own existence and what having free will really means.

A Reaction to Mumbo Jumbo

I'd say many of my other classmates would agree with me when I say that Mumbo Jumbo was a new experience when it comes to novels, especially postmodernist historical fiction. Upon picking it up in the beginning, I was frustrated: I felt confused as I was thrown into the action, and frustrated that I didn't seem to gain a sense of clarity as a meandered my way through the first couple chapters. However, the beauty of Mumbo Jumbo is that Reed appears to intentionally not conform to normal "guidelines" of most novels like, for instance, starting the first chapter after the title page. In retrospect, there were a couple things I learned.
First of all, reading between the lines and understanding how certain concepts interact with each other in the text is incredibly important, even if you don't understand the concepts to begin with. This is where the "historical" aspect of the novel comes in--I'm not ashamed to admit that I didn't understand 90% of the references to certain events and texts in history, but it wasn't incredibly necessary for me to have that background knowledge. Sure, there are things to be gained from the text by researching facts of voudou and Googling uncertain terms here and there. It made me feel better having some sort of background on what a "loa" was, but Reed's general point--that there are cultural influences that tends to rise and fall in phases, like jazz, and that there are opposing forces contesting such cultural forces--was still graspable to me regardless of that knowledge.
Besides the fact that general knowledge of what Reed is trying to convey is important, it’s also important to note that Reed didn’t have to conform to conventional methods of novel-writing to create a successful and interesting postmodern novel. Oftentimes, when we’re thinking about how images relate to the text, there’s an easy, direct correlation when authors decide to include them amongst their chapters. However, sometimes that way Reed includes images seem to have little to no relation to the words that they’re near… if that makes sense. For example, there was a scene in which Berbelang and a cohort of the Mu’tafikah were discussing plans to rescues art from a Detention Center, and right after a character said that white people were “devils,” there was a pictures of a very ugly beaked creature. In many novels, there are usually cues, like captions, to help us figure out what we’re looking at. Besides signs that includes words, there aren’t signals or clues to tell us why Reed included a certain image or what the image is even supposed to be. I sort of figured that maybe it was a manifestation of how such “devils” are perceived, but for all I know, that could be a complete reach and not what Reed intended at all.
That’s how I felt most of the time while reading this book—wondering if I was picking up on things that weren’t actually important. When I’m reading, I’m always putting myself in the shoes of the author whose book I’m reading—why did Reed include this? Why didn’t he include this? What’s the significance of this historical figure? Doing this does make it incredibly difficult to actually explore the various meanings throughout Mumbo Jumbo, since the book is so unorthodox and there are endless interpretations of what Read has created.