Mumbo Jumbo is a novel
that, after having read it, I feel like I have gotten more out of it than just
another read. The multitude of important ideas and topics that Reed calls attention
to are represented in a way that, for some reason sticks with the reader better
than another form of the medium or even another medium. The question of “What
if Mumbo Jumbo was told in a lecture
format?” came up in class today and the general response to it was “It wouldn’t
have worked they way it did as a novel.” Which again raises another question:
Why does Mumbo Jumbo stand out the way
it does when it comes to how Reed portrays the novel?
From a
literary standpoint, Mumbo Jumbo,
apart from its unconventional formatting, seems to have that extra something
that novels of a similar type don’t have. We brought up how Mumbo Jumbo fits the framework for genres
such as Historical Thriller and Detective nearly to a T, but that lack of
fitting either of those entire is what seems to classify it as almost a whole
new genre unless it just fits into the very general genre of Satire. That being
said, Mumbo Jumbo is a satire down to
the smallest details like spelling of words for instance. Humor is found in the
caricature antagonists, the interspersing of scenes like Abdul’s desk, and wherever
you look to be honest. The satire Reed uses is established as the norm from the
start, so it isn’t jarring when reading, but more serves the purpose of
highlighting those small details that, in a more serious novel may be glossed
over entirely. The humor helps these deeper topics be noticed and easier to
digest in some ways, which also lets Reed expound more on said topics. Mumbo Jumbo fits squarely in as a Satire
in its style, however, I feel Mumbo Jumbo
something more than just Satire, but I can’t place my finger on it. Any
thoughts?
I think it is interesting that you bring up the idea of Mumbo Jumbo as a lecture because that is, in some ways, inherently contradictory to Jes Grew. A lecture is very Atonist, and is, by nature, planned, and arranged in a structured manner. This would undermine the point of Mumbo Jumbo I think. On the other hand, at the end of the novel, we see Papa LaBas literally lecturing the story of Mumbo Jumbo, so maybe it would work. However, then he is regarded as old and silly by a professor, so it didn't seem to be as effective as the well-known novel we just read.
ReplyDeleteI think that Mumbo Jumbo is more of discussion if we are going to compare Atonism to a lecture. People keep adding their own thoughts or contributions and you can never plan where it will go next. Just like any metaphor, it is flawed, but I think it gets closer than anything else I can think about.
ReplyDeleteOne curious effect of this novel is that it sort of depends upon an "Atonist" reader, or at least a reader who has been raised in a context of Atonist thought and ideas (and historical narrative). Reed's alternative version of world history, and of 1920s American history, depends on a baseline conventional narrative against which it can agitate--it's interesting to consider how a reader with no historical background (or, like, hundreds of years from now, with only a dim sense of the details of 1920s America) might make of it. Calling Jesus a "minor geek and sorcerer" is designed expressly to upset a certain reader and delight or amuse another, but both of them "get" the joke because they're familiar with more conventional ways of framing Jesus's life. There are so many examples where Reed's narrative is expressly oppositional, but the paradox is that it needs that opposition in order to function. If we were in a Jes Grew-dominated culture, in other words, this novel's purpose and meaning might be a lot LESS clear.
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