Strangeness
One question that may be bugging the minds of people reading Mumbo Jumbo is just how strange the book is set up. Unlike traditional books, this book starts before the publication pages, and has many different dialectical differences. Also, its numbers are always displayed as the numeral rather than the word.
One reason that I have found that explains this book's reason behind designing itself in this way is, of course, the time period in which it is being written. Not the 1920's, that is the year the story takes place, but rather the 1970's at the same time as Ragtime was being written and produced. This is right when Postmodernism is rising, which is the focus of the class. Manipulating the layout of the book is one easy way to cast a critical eye on traditional books and the meta-narrative involving the layout of books. It also pulls us out of reading the book, forcing us to disassociate ourselves with the way books are written, just like the book The Mezzanine did in 20th Century Novel last year, if you took that class. That book was written in the 90's, which puts it squarely in Postmodernist territory.
Another reason that this book may be set up like it is is due to the time period it is attempting to emulate, in the region the story takes place. The main arc of the story takes place in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920's. All regions of the country have dialects and ways of speaking associated with them, and anyone who took Mr. Leff's Freshman History class knows that dialects are merely local versions of a language, with a language being the most accepted dialect. Needless to say, the Northern Manhattan dialect in the 1920's is not the most accepted dialect for 21st century books. This means that for a book that wants to emulate the era they describe, the design of the book will immediately be off-putting to anyone expecting a traditional dialect. This also explains why the phraseology seems to change as we make our way through the book to different regions and different writers. The dialect in that area is just different.
Suffice to say, this book seeks to not only emulate the time it is depicting, but also the time it was written. This combination, of modern literary eras and past dialects, combines together to create a book that looks wholly strange to a common reader, but to a person versed in history, this book makes, maybe not literary sense, but logical sense.
One reason that I have found that explains this book's reason behind designing itself in this way is, of course, the time period in which it is being written. Not the 1920's, that is the year the story takes place, but rather the 1970's at the same time as Ragtime was being written and produced. This is right when Postmodernism is rising, which is the focus of the class. Manipulating the layout of the book is one easy way to cast a critical eye on traditional books and the meta-narrative involving the layout of books. It also pulls us out of reading the book, forcing us to disassociate ourselves with the way books are written, just like the book The Mezzanine did in 20th Century Novel last year, if you took that class. That book was written in the 90's, which puts it squarely in Postmodernist territory.
Another reason that this book may be set up like it is is due to the time period it is attempting to emulate, in the region the story takes place. The main arc of the story takes place in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920's. All regions of the country have dialects and ways of speaking associated with them, and anyone who took Mr. Leff's Freshman History class knows that dialects are merely local versions of a language, with a language being the most accepted dialect. Needless to say, the Northern Manhattan dialect in the 1920's is not the most accepted dialect for 21st century books. This means that for a book that wants to emulate the era they describe, the design of the book will immediately be off-putting to anyone expecting a traditional dialect. This also explains why the phraseology seems to change as we make our way through the book to different regions and different writers. The dialect in that area is just different.
Suffice to say, this book seeks to not only emulate the time it is depicting, but also the time it was written. This combination, of modern literary eras and past dialects, combines together to create a book that looks wholly strange to a common reader, but to a person versed in history, this book makes, maybe not literary sense, but logical sense.
I always encourage readers to think about these books as reflections of their authors' contemporary time periods as well as the historical periods they transport us to, and indeed there are a vast number of ways that _Mumbo Jumbo_ is very much a product of the 1970s (not limited to the fact that many of the photos and illustrations seem to depict what for Reed at the time would have been contemporary, not historical, culture).
ReplyDeleteBut I have my own theory about the weird and often glaring "errors" and apparent typographical errors throughout the book: when Reed mentions that the Wallflower Order has maintained its grip on academia largely by "discrediting" nonwestern scholars in all kinds of ways, he mentions texts "sprinkled with typos as a way of undermining their credibility" (47). So, when we read _Mumbo Jumbo_ and want to complain that its publishing conventions depart from the norm, and that the manuscript was sloppily put together with all these "errors," maybe what we're seeing is evidence that the Atonists have gotten to Reed! They're trying to undermine his work!
I haven't ever seen confirmation of this theory, but it makes sense to me--and adds one additional layer to the already complicated metafictional structure.