{"id":176475885,"date":"2017-08-25T14:37:41","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T19:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/?p=176475885"},"modified":"2017-08-25T14:37:41","modified_gmt":"2017-08-25T19:37:41","slug":"history-mumbo-jumbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kalamu.com\/neogriot\/2017\/08\/25\/history-mumbo-jumbo\/","title":{"rendered":"HISTORY: Mumbo Jumbo"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Tuesday 1 August 2017<\/p><\/div>\n

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Mumbo Jumbo: <\/span><\/h1>\n

a dazzling classic<\/span><\/h1>\n

finally gets <\/span><\/h1>\n

the recognition <\/span><\/h1>\n

it deserves<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Praised by the likes of Tupac and
\nThomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed\u2019s
\nexperimental novel about race in the US
\nis, more than ever, a book for today<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Immortal pertinence \u2026 detail from the cover art for the Penguin Modern Classic edition of Mumbo Jumbo. Illustration: Ishmael Reed\/Penguin Random House<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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By Jonathan McAloon<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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America, wrote Ishmael Reed in his 1972 novel Mumbo Jumbo, is \u201cmercurial, restless, violent … the travelling salesman who can sell the world a Brooklyn Bridge every day, can put anything over on you\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

Forty-five years later, Reed has performed a magic trick reminiscent of something found in that book, a dazzling novel about Voodoo, jazz and white supremacy: his personification of the US has taken a step beyond rhetoric and become flesh, in the mercurial, violent and restless salesman who is now America\u2019s president.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ishmael Reed<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

Mumbo Jumbo, which has just been reissued as a Penguin Modern Classic, reeks of some kind of immortal pertinence. Reed has a certain immortality himself, as the author of novels, poetry, plays and music for more than 50 years. His work is embedded in every level of black culture in America. He has written about Muhammad Ali and Barack Obama; in turn, Tupac Shakur once rapped about him. (\u201cMy man Ishmael Reed\u201d makes an appearance in Still I Rise<\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

His 10 novels are, for the most part, subtle satires on race, worked into settings such as the OJ Simpson trials, a US civil war in which photocopiers exist and a wild west where cowboys wield laser guns. But Mumbo Jumbo is the most dazzling of them all. Set ostensibly in the 1920s, Reed\u2019s novel follows conspiracy theories ranging backwards and forwards through time. A \u201cplague\u201d called Jes Grew has spread from New Orleans and caused half the country to dance recklessly, enjoy jazz and have a new appreciation for African American culture. Religious orders like the Knights Templar and the hi-tech Wallflower Order (responsible in Reed\u2019s novel for the Depression and the US occupation of Haiti) seek to destroy an ancient Egyptian text that the Jes Grew may \u201cwant\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n