I usually post blogs on a book while I am reading it instead of waiting till we finish the book. With Mumbo Jumbo, though, I have been reluctant to post because it has been hard to work out my feelings on the book. It's not really the extreme symbolism that bothers me (for example, last year Invisible Man had an equal amount in it), but rather that I can't get emotionally behind the protagonists.
I think a lot of this has to do with the harshness it treats Western culture with. It has some good points about how Western culture has at times treated other cultures, but it goes way beyond those good points and advocates positions that make no sense. I think it is a fair critique to say that "atonist" or western culture has been intolerant of other cultures, but to claim that Atonists are the source of intolerance is preposterous. The American Indians were hating and killing each other well before Europeans arrived over cultural differences. Also, the stereotype that really got to me was that the Atonists had no fun because they were constantly planning for tomorrow. I've always felt that fun and responsibility were not as unreconcilable as some people make it seem.
On the other hand, I realize that Ishmael Reed is writing a lot of this stuff just to make people mad. I doubt he actually holds a lot of the views that his book does. I think he is too intelligent to actually think that Western culture is the cause of all conflict, he is just trying to provoke a response. Given I realize what he is trying to do, it seems silly to get offended and play into his hands like that. For that reason, I haven't been able to jump on either bandwagon in the book and don't side with either Jes Grew or the Atonists. Therefore it has been hard for me to get very invested in the book and form opinions.
In situations where I'm not really sure which side to support I usually pick the underdog. But in this case, hard to tell who is the underdog. On the one hand, the Atonists control the entire system in what could be considered an oppressive way. But their complete ineptness to stop Jes Grew almost makes them the underdog. It doesn't seem like there is any way Hinckle and Safecracker can stop it, so I kind of want to root for them. All of these factors have contributed to make Mumbo Jumbo a book I had trouble connecting with, and consequently a book I did not like very much.
It seems like a lot of people don't like the book because like you said they have trouble connecting with the characters. But I don't think that they're designed to really be related to. They're all caricatures of actual people instead of real fleshed out developed characters. I think that Reed isn't trying to write about the people, but more about conveying an idea.
ReplyDeleteThere is an interesting tension between the idea that the WO is so evil and manipulative that it's been controlling the flow of information, the very "narrative" of human culture, in the Western world for centuries--stopping at nothing, including killing off an installed president when he appears less sympathetic to their cause, to achieve their aims--and the utter comical bumblingness of Hinckle and Safecracker. Some of this maybe relates back to the description of the African caricature-sculptures of white colonials on Abdul's desk: Reed's own novel depicts colonial/Atonist powers in caricatured ways that highlight their ineptness and make a mockery of the idea of cultural superiority. But it is hard to see how a guy like HVV could have been so successful as a Knights Templar. In the end, he's not any real threat--blackface-Safecracker isn't going to undermine the Harlem Renaissance with his hamfisted "Harlem Tom Toms." The real "enemy" of JG turns out to be Abdul the "censor." The implication is strong that, had he not destroyed the text, HVV would have decisively "lost."
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