Reed’s Critique of Western Culture

            In class we have briefly discussed Reed’s possibly “overly-negative” view of Western culture, but haven’t drawn many big picture conclusions on Reed’s reasoning behind it.   Reed is not saying that Western culture is the root cause of all problems, but rather critiques it to provide a different, unheard metanarrative of history that puts in context the metanarrative that we have grown up with regarding certain historical events.  Reed’s, like Doctorow’s, main point is not trying to convince the reader “this event happened”, but is saying “this could have just as well happened as the stories we are told”.   Reed provides a completely different viewpoint and metanarrative (Western culture=root cause of all problems) that makes us question what we have been taught to believe (our own metanarratives).

            In the process of providing this extremely harsh narrative on Western culture, Reed makes many statements meant to offend many readers.  (I don’t think anybody is supposed to say after reading Mumbo Jumbo “ohhhh so that’s actually what happened with Moses”).  For instance, Reed calls Jesus a “sorcerer, an early Faust […], a Maharishi yoga type who went around the countryside performing tricks” (170).   Reed then pulls a quote (actually) from Julian the Apostate:

… Yet Jesus, who won over the least worthy of you, has been known by name for but little more than three hundred years: and during his lifetime he accomplished nothing worth hearing of, unless anyone thinks that to heal crooked and blind men and to exorcise those who were possessed by evil demons in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany can be classed as a mighty achievement.  (171)

Reed doesn’t necessarily want the reader to believe that Jesus “accomplished nothing

worth hearing of”, but is merely providing a different metanarrative that puts more perspective on what most readers have been taught.   

            Reed also “over-stereotypes” all of the white characters of the story to provide something of a “reversal” to other books being published in the 20^th century like Carl Von Vechten’s works. From their names to their actions, all of the white characters in Mumbo Jumbo are comparable to stale white bread.  “Thor Wintergreen” is Reed’s most interestingly developed white character, but fails when put to the test of keeping Biff Musclewhite constrained as a hostage.  Thor gives in to Biff solely because of his “whiteness” and his “heritage”.  Reed uses these weak, pretty pathetic white characters as reversals of the literary stereotyping and racism towards and depicting black characters at the time.   

Jes Grew’s Relation to Jazz

In just the first 9 chapters of Mumbo Jumbo, I cannot help but see the correlation between the Jes Grew epidemic and the spread of jazz in the early 20^th century.  The whole plague begins in 1920s New Orleans, around the time that jazz is taking root in New Orleans as well.  Then it spreads in a very similar fashion as jazz: New York, Chicago, St. Louis, as well as a large number of cases in Mississippi, the birthplace of the blues.  On top of that, the symptoms of the condition seem to be eerily similar to how people may react to jazz: Dancing, singing, grinding, slapping, etc are very reasonable things to do when in the heat of a jazz club. 

Some of the images in the beginning of Mumbo Jumbo also seem to suggest jazz connections -- when I saw the picture of the people with the bowler hats right before the title page, the first thing that popped into my mind was a jazz club.  The people seem to be dancing, clapping, having a good time, and the lighting seems to be that of some sort of nightclub.

Then Reed just sticks in a paragraph about Charlie Parker in the 4^th chapter: “1920. Charlie Parker, the houngan (a word derived from n’gana gana) for whom there was no master adept enough to award him the Asson, is born.  1920-1930.  That 1 decade which doesn’t seem so much a part of American history as the hidden After-Hours of America struggling to jam.  To get through." (16) Although I don’t know what a lot of this quote means, Reed seems to be highlighting the birth of one of the most prominent jazz musicians of the 20^th century and talking about how jazz is beginning, but “struggling”, to jam in the 1920-30s.

The text itself seems to have a rhythmic structure similar to jazz, with various rhymes thrown in at odd times [;)] and a disjointed, confusing feel as if the reader is a first-time listener of a completely new form of music.  Even the title, “Mumbo Jumbo”, has a bounce and syncopation to it.  We naturally put more emphasis on the “Bo”’s over the “Mum” and “Jum” (mumBO jumBO) giving it a syncopated feeling when saying it.   One instance of a rhyme just thrown into the text is when Jes Grew-infected New Orleans is described as “a mess. People sweep the clutter from the streets. The city’s head is once more calm.  Normal.  It sleeps after the night of howling, speaking-in-tongues, dancing to drums”   (17)

            I don’t know if Reed will take the correlations between Jes Grew and jazz further into the book, but in just the first night’s reading it really stuck out to me, especially when he drops the Louis Armstrong quote:

“Once the band starts, everybody starts swaying from one side of the street to the other, especially those who drop in and follow the ones who have been to the funeral.  These people are known as “the second line” and they may be anyone passing along the street who wants to hear the music.  The spirit hits them and they follow 

(My italics)

Louis Armstrong” (7)

            I’m not sure if this quote will make more sense as we progress further in the book, but at the moment Reed seems to be using Louis Armstrong’s words about jazz to describe how Jes Grew spreads and effects its “victims.”