Crossing Western Space, or the HooDoo Detective on the Boundary in Ishmael Reed's "Mumbo Jumbo"

Abstract

Following publication of Mumbo Jumbo in 1972, Ishmael Reed proclaimed the best mystery novel of year (Shrovetide 132). Reed's statement, of course, seems out of place given that Mumbo Jumbo looks nothing like conventional detective novel. A composite narrative composed of subtexts, pre-texts, post-texts, and narratives-within-narratives (Gates 220), Mumbo Jumbo even includes such oddities as pictures, footnotes, and bibliography. But despite its unique appearance, central narrative, among novel's various intra-texts, does, in fact, include both detective, PaPa LaBas, and his classic search for both murderer as well as missing text, reminiscent of Poe's Purloined Letter. As Mumbo Jumbo opens, a psychic epidemic known as Grew is creeping across 1920s' America. Although Reed takes term Grew from James Weldon Johnson (who wrote that 'the earliest Ragtime songs, like Topsy, 'jes' grew' (qtd. in Mumbo 11), (1) he traces as far back as an ancient Egyptian da nce craze that reemerges in New Orleans in 1890s, flair-up which authorities thought they had neutralized by fumigating Place Congo. But they misunderstood nature of Grew--which Western science cannot even bring into focus or categorize (40)--and now is back again, sparking Renaissance, and has its carriers, or J.G.C.s, literally dancing in streets. Alarmed by these developments, Grew's enemies Atonists call out their military wing Wallflower Order defend cherished traditions of West (15). Grew is spreading for reason: Jes Grew is seeking its words. Its (6). must find its Speaking or strangle on its own ineloquence (34); however, where and what exactly this text is remains mystery, central mystery of novel. Ironically, text Grew seeks has come America in hands of an Atonist, Hinckle Von Vampton, or H.V.V.--a caricature of Renaissance patron Carl Van Vechten--who decides send out as chain book J.G.C. individuals scattered throughout Harlem (69). Unknown H.V.V., one of 14 J.G.C.s collects and gives anthology black Muslim Egyptologist Abdul Hamid translate. Anticipating completion of Abdul's work, Grew is on its way New York, where will cohabit with its text-unless Atonists get Text first; as Atonists see it, only way stop J.G. is destroy Text that seeks. Consequently, H.V.V. and his partner Hubert Safecracker Gould pay visit Abdul, demanding he surrender Text, and when Abdul refuses, they murder him. As fate, or convention, would have it, LaBas discovers body along with clue, cryptic note from Abdul. LaBas has the nagging suspicion...[the note] has something do with missing antholo gy (131). It reads: Stringy lumpy; Bales dancing / Beneath this center / Lies Bird (98). Clue in hand, LaBas, thus, begins his classic search for both murderers as well as location of missing text. But while Mumbo Jumbo has all makings, Reed's novel is no conventional piece of detective fiction. It is, rather, detective story which evokes impulse 'detect' ... in order violently frustrate it (Spanos 171). Nor is Reed's detective conventional sleuth. (2) Unlike his literary forerunners, who relied on ratiocination and science, LaBas is a jack-legged detective of metaphysical (212), a private eye practicing. . . NeoHooDoo therapy (211). In an obvious transgression of Western detective genre, LaBas does not depend solely on scientific reason or concrete evidence explain away mystery; contrary, he preaches turning to mystery, wonderment, or in Voodoo tradition, loas. (3) LaBas's very name, in fact, is taken from African deity Legba and his Haitian incarnation PaPa Legba, trickster figure who mediates between spiritual and material worlds. …