kids these days
In our (admittedly limited) trek into Mumbo Jumbo so far, the primary conflict centers around the rapid spread of jes grew and various characters’ reactions to it. Although it seems to have a lot of parallels with the spread of jazz music and other African-American art forms throughout America, at the same time, it’s not really clear what, exactly, jes grew is. The imagery and descriptions of it in the narrative conjure up the feeling of a disease, and it’s called a “plague” outright several times. But it’s also described as an “anti-plague” -- and the only consistent symptoms being so overcome with jes grew that the infected population begins dancing uncontrollably. There’s also one more essential quality of jes grew that makes it uniquely alarming to the white lawmakers such as the one we meet on the first page of the novel: it originated in black communities, and now has begun to spread rapidly to whites as well. It is wildly popular and, in the eyes of those i