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!
I think that you make an interesting point about Reed chose to confuse everyone through reading the opening chapters. This makes me think back to our discussion in class when we talked about that scene being similar to the start of a movie. I think that Reed was trying to pull us into the story; and even though we are confused about what is happening we will continue to read on in hopes of understanding it further.
ReplyDeleteReading around some others' blogs, I think I'm definitely convinced now that Reed is trying to anger and confuse the reader with his rhythmic, chaotic style in the same way that those like the Wallflower Order are disturbed by the disorder of Jes Grew. I admit that though the book's complete disregard for conforming to common conventions is laudable, I imagine this sort of writing will get old after a while as it remains impossible to derive any significant amount of meaning or plot from it. It's a very difficult text to explicate, and I hope we get more and more used to it as we keep reading.
ReplyDeleteI liked your point in class today about "Jes Grew" meaning "Just Grew." I think the similarity between the phrases is pretty convincing, along with the epigraph on page 11, which reads, "The earliest Ragtime songs, like Topsy, "jes' grew." At first, reading that line, I had no idea what it was saying (as has been the case with most of the book so far), but looking back on it, the dance plague being named after some spontaneous unearthing makes a lot of sense. I just wonder now how far Reed will take this "Jes Grew" phenomenon, and like you, I'll be interested to see how this book develops and how my opinions on it will change.
ReplyDeleteThe typos are definitely striking, but they aren't just some kind of stylistic choice that Reed chose to do according to today's reading. Although Mumbo Jumbo is confusing, I definitely expect to make sense in the end.
ReplyDeleteI am just as confused as you. Kate and I were talking about how we kept reading it as "Jews" instead of Jes. Which I initially thought could be some sort of play on the word. Later James informed me that that was one of the typos originally which is probably why it's all I can see when I read it. But in that case, maybe the typos could be some sort of Freudian slip. Like a particular typo like "Jes" to "Jews" could be the authors way of pointing something else out about something related (this is just an example). Like for a quick second he wants us to pay attention to how the typo can change the word and then reverts us back to the "correct" spelling?
ReplyDeleteYou note that Reed inserts "his opinion" by adding italics to Louis Armstrong's statement, and in a sense this is true--but it's not "opinion" in the sense of an individual bias or commentary. This is a standard scholarly practice, to draw the reader's attention to a crucial part of a quoted phrase--you can do this with italics yourself in your short critical essays, to highlight key words in a bit of textual evidence.
ReplyDeleteSo here, what Reed suggests a deeper implication to Armstrong's description of a second line in New Orleans: "the spirit hits them, and they follow" is one one level a literal description of what happens at one of these events. But Reed implies another, deeper layer of meaning, reflecting the "hidden history" his novel ostensibly represents--a kind of "wink" to the reader, like, "So now you see what Armstrong was *really* saying between the lines here: they're 'catching' Jes Grew"!