Art and Criticism in Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo
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This paper examines Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo as a text that precipitated a radical revaluation of African American music. Channeling the improvisational spirit of avant-garde jazz into prose, Reed’s novel reduces the gap between the musician, the writer, and the critic. To understand this textual operation, this paper discusses the model of art promoted by Mumbo Jumbo and its critical provocation. Reed figures black creativity as a psychic plague called Jes Grew. The origin of Jes Grew is traced back to Egypt, but it is at the same time depicted as an inherently syncretic force. In the process of crossing the Atlantic, Africans were deprived of the material base of their culture, but this condition ironically strengthened the flexibility and adaptability of their culture. The Atonists, or the supporters of Western philosophy and culture, seek to dissolve Jes Grew by creating a human vaccine. This vaccine is the Talking Android, an African American writer who will produce a critical discourse unfavorable to black expressivity. Through this strategy, the Atonists hope to gain epistemological dominance over non-Western cultures. This master plan, however, is repeatedly thwarted by the uncoordinated moves made by independent Jes Grew Carriers. Their greatest power resides in heterogeneity and individual creativity. In short, Reed fictionally recasts real-life power struggles on the levels of cultural practice and cultural criticism. Although the ancient text is destroyed over the course of the novel, the novel ends with multiple instances of cultural criticism, thus making space for further critical engagement not only with the text of Mumbo Jumbo but with the discursive formations surrounding black culture.
Abstract
This paper examines Ishmael Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo as a text that precipitated a radical revaluation of African American music. Channeling the improvisational spirit of avant-garde jazz into prose, Reed’s novel reduces the gap between the musician, the writer, and the critic. To understand this textual operation, this paper discusses the model of art promoted by Mumbo Jumbo and its critical provocation. Reed figures black creativity as a psychic plague called Jes Grew. The origin of Jes Grew is traced back to Egypt, but it is at the same time depicted as an inherently syncretic force. In the process of crossing the Atlantic, Africans were deprived of the material base of their culture, but this condition ironically strengthened the flexibility and adaptability of their culture. The Atonists, or the supporters of Western philosophy and culture, seek to dissolve Jes Grew by creating a human vaccine. This vaccine is the Talking Android, an African American writer who will produce a critical discourse unfavorable to black expressivity. Through this strategy, the Atonists hope to gain epistemological dominance over non-Western cultures. This master plan, however, is repeatedly thwarted by the uncoordinated moves made by independent Jes Grew Carriers. Their greatest power resides in heterogeneity and individual creativity. In short, Reed fictionally recasts real-life power struggles on the levels of cultural practice and cultural criticism. Although the ancient text is destroyed over the course of the novel, the novel ends with multiple instances of cultural criticism, thus making space for further critical engagement not only with the text of Mumbo Jumbo but with the discursive formations surrounding black culture.
참고문헌 (25)
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