All the Good Men Are Dead

In a book with bland, lifeless, passive, and straight-up unlikable characters, I think my favorite is Edgar Derby. Which is odd, considering he plays the most minuscule of roles in Slaughterhouse-Five. As far as we can tell, he has no significant bearing on Billy's state of mind, character arc, or the narrative at-large. He flits in and out of the picture, making brief inconsequential cameos whenever Vonnegut sees fit.

And yet, despite Derby's obscurity, I don't think I'm alone in admiring Derby and I think Vonnegut did this intentionally. Derby is a good man. Just on paper, he looks like a wholesome, everyday American - a teacher and a family man. And in person, his wholesomeness still holds. We see him volunteer to assist pathetic Billy Pilgrim when they arrive at the British camp, he assumes leadership of the American troops when no one else does, and he gives a rousing speech about American values and our unbreakable alliance with the Russian peoples (a sentiment our current President shares with him.)

It's not just the presence of benevolent actions that makes Derby my favorite, though. What's also significant is the absence of any shitty actions. Derby simply doesn't do anything that would explicitly make me hate him. In any other novel, that might be a pathetically low bar, but in Slaughterhouse-Five, a story with such characters as the bloodthirsty and idiotic Roland weary and a protagonist who cares about nothing and no one, Derby is basically eligible for sainthood.

It makes sense then, in this grand anti-war narrative, that Derby should be treated the way he is by the powers-that-be (that is, Vonnegut.) Despite what we may think of the Second World War and, indeed, American war in general, the battlefield is no place for a good man like Derby. His belief in American ideals, admirable career as a teacher, charming nuclear family to return home to, and all-around good nature, are horribly unbecoming of a military man. And thus, Vonnegut proceeds to take an enormous dump on him. His acts of kindness are received with no gratitude, his rousing speech about American-Russian brotherhood is met with an awkward silence, and, of course, he's shot for holding a teacup after surviving a firestorm that took tens of thousands of lives.

(It's not just that he's shot for holding a teacup, which is already an anticlimactic death in the midst of the Second World War, his death is also anticlimactic within the novel's own pacing. We know from the very beginning that Derby is going to receive this awful death. So we expect (or at least I did) a lengthy description of the event we've heard so much about. Instead, we get, "Somewhere in there the poor old high school teacher, Edgar Derby, was caught with a teapot he had taken from the catacombs. He was arrested for plundering. He was tried and shot." It's actually an anticlimax that parallels the bombing of Dresden itself, which is almost skimmed over in the midst of a memory (not time travel) after having been built up to for the entire novel.)

But then, the question should be raised, why not make Derby the protagonist? We seemed to have come to the general consensus that Vonnegut's intention is to blur the lines of morality and deromanticize the nature of war and destroy the idea that it's some awesome and heroic adventure. So then why not portray the futility of the hero?

One reason might be that protagonizing Derby (definitely not a word) would still be romanticizing war to an extent. Derby's trials and tribulations could be seen as a form of martyrdom. It might send the message that although war itself is gross, it creates heroes. Portraying any type of hero in war fails to reflect that Vonnegut and his companions, in the words of Mary O'Hare, "were just babies." Not heroes. Not martyrs. Not soldiers. Not Derby. Therefore, it would make sense for Vonnegut to avoid putting emphasis on him.

However, Vonnegut doesn't straight up deny the existence of people like Derby. He very well could. If Derby were gone, all that would be left are shitheads and it seems like Vonnegut views humanity as an enormous collection of shitheads, a common sentiment among anti-war narratives. But he includes Derby, showing that he believes in the existence of non-shitheads (otherwise known as good people.)  So maybe Vonnegut isn't that concerned with moral relativism. Perhaps he's concerned about Derby, and how he's affected him. Perhaps Vonnegut feels guilty about Derby's death.

Vonnegut is constantly mentioning "Poor ol' Edgar Derby." Though his appearances are quiet, they are frequent, with Derby appearing in nearly every 1944 passage. And even when he's not onscreen, his name pops up here and there, with Vonnegut casually name-dropping the man who was shot for stealing a teacup.

Although it's mentioned in a nonchalant manner, we've learned time and time again with Vonnegut that nonchalance isn't to be trusted. We've learned that, if anything, the most deeply troubling aspects of the war, are described with extreme informality. So Vonnegut glosses over Derby's death, likely one of the most horrifying events. But his guilt leaves us a clue, the constant repetition of Derby's name. It's almost like the memory of Derby is ringing around in Pilgrim's (or Vonnegut's head, unable to shake the fact that he, a dull optometrist got to live, while a good man like Derby died.

A similar phenomenon occurs with Wild Bob, whose trademark catchphrase, "If you're ever in Cody, Wyoming, ask for Wild Bob!" is repeated frequently in the final pages of the novel. Wild Bob, for the brief time we knew him, was only ever concerned with finding his men. He was, just like Derby, an essentially good man. And he dies ungloriously in a boxcar, never to return to be on call in Cody, Wyoming. And that kills Pilgrim/Vonnegut - a useless piece of shit old fart, who got to live and thrive while the heroes died.

Where Do the Mu'tafikah Fall?

Alright, so after the deeply clarifying (yet somehow still bewildering) chapters that were 52 and 52, we have a more fleshed out picture of the alignments in the war between Atonism and Jes Grew. On one side, we have Jes Grew, polytheistic African tradition, Papa LaBas (for the most part), improvisation, and joy.  On the other side, we have Atonism, Western Civilization, Judeo-Christian tradition, Moses, authority, and structured "high art."

Now, since I'm unable to discuss a topic without it being directly relevant to me, I posit the question (and this was what the blog post was gonna be about before arguing with Vikram): "Where does Islam fit?"

While we were reading the former half of Mumbo Jumbo, I generally assumed Islam fell on the side of Jes Grew. Although their relationship is tense, Abdul Hamid, the only explicitly Muslim character, is generally on the side of Papa LaBas and undoubtedly opposed to Atonism. Islam has often been associated with Black Americans, with the first Muslim Americans being African slaves as well as with many black nationalists rallying around the Nation of Islam in the second half of the 20th century. The Wallflower Order spoke a lot about the Crusades and Templars, in which the Atonists would have been vehemently opposed to (and massacring) Muslims. And Islam is just generally unapproved of by what is a predominantly Christian Western Civilization, making it an ideal foe to the Atonists and ally to Jes Grew.

This becomes complicated once LaBas gives his whole spiel revealing the long-winded history of Jes Grew and Atonism. Although Moses is commonly associated with Judaism and Jesus with Christianity (both figures of Atonism), they also play major parts in the Quran as well. And LaBas doesn't appear to make great distinctions between the Abrahamic traditions himself, indicating that Islam could very well be aligned with the Atonists.

Additionally, speaking from personal experience, orthodox Islam is no less regulatory and doctrinarian than its Christian or Jewish counterpart. Abdul Hamid's character also seems to fit this idea of Islam being more aligned with Atonism as well. Abdul Hamid is a strict traditionalist, unyielding in his rigid and sexist rules.

So then, where does that leave Islam? Before you answer, let me just throw another wrench into the works. Where are the Mu'tafikah? I ask this because Reed specifically chooses to use the Quranic word for the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, despite the fact that they show up in other Abrahamic texts. Those inhabitants were crushed by God in the texts of all three Abrahamic religions for performing acts of sodomy. They're sinners. And in Reed's novel, they're specifically sinners within the Islamic religion. Therefore, it seems that, regardless of where Islam stands, the Mu'tafikah are aligned against Islam.

So let's say Islam is on the side of Atonism as LaBas' tale suggests. This would make for a pretty satisfying explanation. The Mu'tafikah would consequently be aligned by Jes Grew, against Islam, which follows from their fight against Atonism. Islam would be aligned with the similar traditions of Judaism and Christianity. A few questions still remain with the case of the Crusades and Abdul Hamid, but overall it's a pretty tight narrative.

But let's also consider the possibility that Islam is on the side of Jes Grew, as much of the book seems to suggest. Then it appears the Mu'tafikah are consequently aligned against Jes Grew. This explanation also has some weight to it considering that LaBas seems to be at odds with Berbelang. Although the Mu'tafikah are obviously not aligned with Atonism, it appears they may still be hindering Jes Grew.

This is just a thought but in that case, Reed might be aiming at the younger, more radical generation of black nationalists, claiming that they are in fact a hindrance to the larger black population. (Perhaps a criticism of the Nation of Islam as a corrupted form of the actual religion.)

I suppose I could just be, as Adi said, falling into Reed's trap. He sets before us this incredibly intricate narrative, supported endlessly by events that somehow seem to fit the ridiculous and clearly fictional puzzle. But it seems so real and fleshed-out that we think we can hold it up to a microscope, break it down to its barest parts, and have it all make sense. I've become the Guianese art critic - trying to make sense of it all, trying to cram it all under a single narrative, and analyzing it with an aggressively academic eye, when Reed's whole point is to not do that.