So What Genre is Mumbo Jumbo Anyways?

Recently in class, we've delved into the idea that Mumbo Jumbo can be viewed as an ontological detective novel. Throughout the story, LaBas is acting as a detective, trying to unravel the mystery of the big bad Atonists interfering with and trying to take down Jes Grew. He's constantly gathering clues and putting together metaphysical evidence that reveals Hinckle Von Vampton to be the villain he is, finally culminating in the great story beginning in ancient Egypt that satisfyingly fills in the mysterious holes lurking in the narrative. The whole book plays out like a movie, with a number of obviously cinematic elements scattered throughout, like the title coming after the first chapter and the stage cues in the final chapter. I can definitely understand the book being viewed as a detective novel of sorts.

Still, I feel like if I were to describe the novel to someone, I'm not sure I would call it a detective story. There are just so many other elements at play throughout the book I'm very reluctant to pin it to just one genre. The novel consists of a whole number of themes and stories, and it's all jumbled enough so as to appear something like a collage. It seems like Reed is most trying to make fun of contemporary western culture and reveal an alternate perspective to early twentieth century history directly in opposition to the common "Atonist" narrative. I would say that his method of telling a detective story is definitely twisting and building on the modernist ways of doing so, but it's not his chief purpose in the novel.

So it's pretty difficult to assign some specific genre to Mumbo Jumbo that people will understand immediately. It's not really like any other works I've read before, and I would say intentionally so. It's a very postmodernist novel, obviously, and is designed to be particularly unpalatable or unfamiliar, at least at first. Slowly, as I read, it opened itself up as satire, historical narrative, a detective story, and also text simply designed to provoke the reader. This chaotic mixture of work definitely seems to allow for a whole slew of interpretations, as I'm sure Reed was aware. I'm certainly glad to have read it, I'm just still gathering my thoughts together and trying to determine exactly what it is I've read.

History in the Making

In class we've been grappling with the idea that history might just be a collection of arbitrary events that are magically strung together by historians to form compelling stories. I certainly don't think it's a very intuitive way of thinking about the historical record. Chronology and cause-and-effect tend to be our primary concerns and it's the burden of proof that keeps historians from making random connections between seemingly unrelated events. Still though, the physical evidence more often than not only sheds light on one potential story, when something entirely different may have happened. All throughout Ragtime, Doctorow presents a whole number of improbable situations but the book nonetheless remains historically grounded, and nothing in it can be definitively pointed out to not have happened. It's very frustrating just how open to interpretation and possibility the historical record is.

Rarely, it seems, are the historical events themselves disputed. Its the unrecorded encounters and unclear relations between these events that enable historians to create a variety of stories from different perspectives, some disputed and others not so much. To me, a historian has always been someone who analyzes primary sources, tangible evidence, the works of other historians, and formulates their own uniquely-positioned narrative equally subject to analysis and criticism. Not all historical events are created equal, and it's up to the historian to determine which ones make for an interesting perspective or important connection. In this way, all histories leave out information and offer interpretation of the evidence they present, or else they would be entirely worthless.

Postmodernism teaches us that there is no one true historical perspective or narrative from which to view events past. This is extremely important, highlighting the key idea that history is a discussion. New narratives are constantly being presented, differing perspectives being emphasized and illustrated. Nobody should sit in a history class and mindlessly treat the subject matter as gospel, because the mere recounting of undisputed historical events is inherently demonstrating bias in some way or another. Stories (and flowcharts) need to be constantly challenged and tested, their purposes and positions made transparent. As is repeatedly demonstrated throughout Ragtime and the articles we've been studying, we can never have all the facts about history or understand every intimate cause-and-effect. It is unproductive at best and malicious at worst to pretend like we do.