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 20th 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.
You make a lot of really good points in this post, I think it's important that we realize that Reed isn't necessarily just depicting white characters and Western culture in the way he does for no particular reason. He's reversing the roles and trying to show the readers what it's like to be on the other side of things. Also your analysis of Thor is interesting, he's like kind of almost a developed character but doesn't quite get there, and I'm sure we'd be able to compare him to a lot of historical figures who are discussed in American history textbooks.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in the person who gets super offended by a book like Mumbo Jumbo. It seems pretty clear from the start that is a book that is planning to challenge the reader while not being taken too seriously, so I'm pretty sure that if you've made it far enough into Mumbo Jumbo to the extra offensive sections than you've already come to terms with Reed's self indigence.
ReplyDeleteI'm kind of disappointed we didn't get to analyze Thor much in class (wow, of all the characters I could be concerned about, it's one of the white ones). I got this bad feeling reading about Thor's interaction with the waiter after he has coffee with Berbelang in chapter 23. He doesn't do anything when the price of the coffee is unfairly jacked up for Berbelang. Once he's alone, he uses the fact that his father owns the restaurant chain to get the waiter to shut up -- seemingly not because he's finally sort of standing up for Berbelang, but because the waiter insulted Thor's choice in company. And then Thor calmly accepts more coffee. I guess that's a little bit of foreshadowing for Thor's quick fall to Biff's line of reasoning. Anyway, nice post.
ReplyDeleteI think it's especially interesting that he touched on religion. I feel like I've grown up learning not to challenged other people's beliefs in terms of religion. Questioning and trying to understand is okay, but not taking a figure of their religion and suggesting that they were not what they thought they were. I think this made me consider religions as more separated and different. By giving different views to the role of Jesus, it seems as though Reed is saying that all of these religions live side by side.
ReplyDeleteReed definitely portrays Western Culture as a whole in a pretty negative light, but I agree he is simply laying out another meta-narrative most readers aren't used to. The only time I really found myself upset with Reed was his depiction of Christianity and monotheism as a whole, siding this very common belief with essentially the villains of the novel.
ReplyDeleteWe may not be intended to actually "believe" Reed's counternarrative, in all its detail, as a literal reconstruction of "what happened" (his flaunting of anachronism alone seems to forestall such a reading). But one effect of spinning an internally coherent counternarrative out of familiar elements is that we see the familiar narrative *as* a narrative, not a transparent account of "what happened"--and we see how such stories have been used to justify or underwrite Western cultural dominance, by seeing how many of the same elements could be spun slightly differently, for a totally different effect. In other words, I'm not totally convinced that Reed *doesn't* see his historical narrative as in some ways more accurate than the Atonist version. The dynamics of cultural repression it narrates are real enough.
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