Questions Explained

In my last blog post, I expressed my confusion after reading the first few chapters of Mumbo Jumbo. Well, I can’t say that I understand it perfectly after finishing it, but I do think that the rest of the book does a good job of explaining some things that I didn’t fully understand initially, and also revealing some of the points the author conveys through the story. 

One thing that bothered me at the beginning was how the book begins with Reed seeming to purposefully confuse the readers by jumping around so much. One reason he does this could be to deviate from western convention. In class, we discussed how the book starts like a movie, with the “credits” or publication info coming after the first chapter. The end of the book is also different than that of a typical fictional novel, with the bibliography making it seem as though it is a scholarly book. There are also pictures, footnotes, and a hand-written letter. All of these make Mumbo Jumbo stand out from other novels. Other things I mentioned in my last post were the author’s use of numbers, commas, and quotation marks, all of which are very different from books I typically read. The most obvious reason for Reed’s stray from western convention is that he tries to mirror what Jes Grew is doing throughout his book. Jes Grew is very new to the western norms, and the book serves to show how the culture of Jes Grew developed and how people tried to stop it from spreading.

In my last post, I also expressed confusion regarding the frequent use of typos. In one chapter, Reed mentions that “Their writings were banished, added to the Index of Forbidden Books or sprinkled with typos as a way of undermining their credibility…” (I don’t remember what page this is on, but looking up the quote on Google Books gives you page 47). This gives us an answer to my question, that people inserted typos into Mumbo Jumbo so it would have less credibility, probably because of some of the ideas conveyed.

Speaking of controversial ideas, one thing I realized from reading Mumbo Jumbo is that Reed, like Doctorow, has a clear bias in his writing. Reed seems to portray those that are against Jes Grew in a negative way. This can be seen in those that try to lock up culture in the museum, or “Center for Art Detention.” Reed’s depiction of this as a sort of prison makes me see the people who lock up the culture in a bad way, and those who are trying to release it in a better light. To give another example, Reed also portrays PaPa LaBas, a supporter of Jes Grew, as a warm and relaxed person, which makes me see the African culture positively.

So, while I’m still a little confused about some parts of the book, I have realized a few new things. I also think that in the future, rereading this book would be very interesting because I think I’d understand everything much better from the very beginning.

Mumbo Jumbo Indeed

In the past few days, our class has started to become acquainted with Mumbo Jumbo and all the confusion that comes with it. After the first reading in particular, no matter how many times I reread the sentences, I couldn’t understand what was really going on. This is mainly because Reed’s writing is very incoherent, and jumps around so much. The first few chapters include so many different scenes, and the only thing they had in common was “Jes Grew.” This made it even more confusing, because initially I didn’t really have any conception of what that was. I don’t know why Reed chose to confuse everyone through reading the opening chapters, but I’m sure he had a reason, since he definitely could have made it a lot easier on us.

There are some things I’ve noticed in the first few readings, but I’d like to make clear that I have no idea if these details have any importance. I’m simply listing them in the hopes that later I’ll look back on this post and be able to say that I finally understand it. First, there are no quotation marks when people talk. This also happens in Ragtime, so I noticed it right away. The next thing that caught my eye was that there are many typos throughout the book. At first, I saw “Jew Grew” (17) and thought there was a special meaning to it, but it was later pointed out to me in class that there are many other misspellings of this nature. There may still be a meaning to it, but like I said, I guess we’ll just have to find out. Another thing I noticed was that the author never spells out his numbers. Now I understand that if you are writing bigger numbers, but he even uses it like “1 hand supports her head…” (25) or “2 mysterious bodies” (25), both of which most people would write out as “one” and “two.” These details were really interesting to me, so I hope I’ll be able to understand them soon.

The biggest mystery of the first part of the book, of course, is the enigma of Jes Grew. As we’ve read farther in the book, my current understanding of it is a form of black culture or dance. This makes sense as I read over the first chapter again. People with Jes Grew are described as “wriggling like fish…doing the ‘Sassy Bump’” (4). Today in class, we discussed it having to do with jazz, since this word used to be spelled “jass.” I’d also like to propose the idea that it sounds like “just grew,” which makes sense to me since it makes it seem like a spontaneous thing. This could also be supported in the text, with people being in a “state of ‘Uncontrollable Frenzy’” (4). Today in class, we also talked about how this makes sense, since people sometimes feel like they lose control of their body when they hear music. This certainly makes sense, since Jes Grew being compared to an illness also reminds me of songs describing dance as some kind of virus. Reed shows this in an interesting way when he quotes Louis Armstrong (Reed’s own opinion in italics of course): “Once the band starts, everybody starts swaying from one side of the street to the other…The spirit hits them and they follow” (7).

So, here are some of my thoughts on Mumbo Jumbo so far. Let me know if you have any insights to help me make more sense of this!