Mumbo Jumbo. A giant "WTF" at first read. I was so thoroughly confused by what was going on that I think I let my bewilderment get the best of me. We start in the Mayor's office with a "Zuzu" on his lap and soon progress to Warren Harding and the Wall Flower Order. Just completely confused. As a wise friend said to me early this morning, "It's like Bill Cosby decided to write a book!".
I'll admit, after the first paragraph I kind of gave up on the book. I never really gave it a chance to flesh out which probably explains my annoyed and confused emotions. As we broke down and discussed the book in class, I couldn't really understand why I was confused. The plot is pretty straight forward, the mayor is sitting in his office late at night with a lady of evening on his knee when all of a sudden a call of distress reaches his office. Pretty simple, right? Then as we delved further into the novel, I began to notice and appreciate the style that Reed uses. It would be a sweeping generalization to say that the writing is "jazzy", but to me, I found there to be this mellow rhythm that meanders along (which I think is to keep that "Big Easy" feeling of New Orleans) with sharp bursts of energy, almost like a silent movie.
Speaking of movies, "Mumbo Jumbo" has this very thematic quality. It seems almost like one of those old gangster movies tinged with jabs at the seriousness of that the characters have. Freaking out over Jes Grew, seriously?! The novel no longer seems like a cacophony of clashing, vibrant thoughts. It seems to have a well developed, guided course that will lead the reader throughout the book while still maintaining the crowded, hectic feel I first noticed as I read the book.
2 comments:
I felt the exact same when we were discussing the book in class. At first I felt like Mumbo Jumbo was all over the place and very confusing, almost as if someone just threw random colors of paint onto a canvas. However, after our class discussions I was able to appreciate and see the novel more as a Jackson Pollock painting.
And I definitely agree that there is something to the analogy of jazz to Reed's narrative style--the quick changes, the rhythmic variation, the sense of spontaneity/improvisation, and the improvisation on familiar themes or elements of pop culture (as jazz has a long tradition of reinterpreting popular songs in entirely new, barely recognizable forms). And he's definitely riffing, among other things, on gangster-movie conventions--only instead of fighting over territory they're fighting over cultural influence and respect.
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