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 in power, an offense to respectable sensibilities everywhere. Although nearly anyone could get swept up in jes grew, the youth are particularly susceptible: “The kids want to dance belly to belly and cheek to cheek while their elders are supporting legislation that would prohibit them from dancing closer than 9 inches. The kids want to Funky Butt and Black Bottom while their elders prefer the Waltz as a suitable vaccine for what is now merely a rash.”

           For a novel that is otherwise baffling, this is one component that sounds very familiar to our modern ears. The conflict between old and new ideas is almost always present in some form. Even at Uni, nearly everyone could cite at least one example in which the wishes of the student body and the administration were at odds (RIP pizza sales/student elevator usage/quadrilateral tables and normal chairs). The specific example of adults disapproving of popular music and dance is even more recognizable: look no further than the recent “no-really,-it’s-for-real-this-time” no grinding rule at Uni dances.

          This same dynamic also surfaces in our previous discussions of Ragtime. Coalhouse Walker’s ragtime performance in the family parlour was received with admiration from Mother’s Younger Brother, but some level of confusion from Father, who immediately associated it and Coalhouse with the songs performers in blackface would sing in minstrel shows. As I discussed in my previous blog post, all of this is also part of the ongoing conflict between the past, and progress towards the future, in Ragtime.

           I think you could argue that it isn’t coincidental that this theme has appeared in both of these novels we’ve read so far. To go back to a central question of this course -- what does it mean to write a postmodern historical narrative? -- the conflict between tradition and new ideas is an essential part of a postmodernist view of history. If history is a collection of myriad possible narratives that can be constructed from the same set of uncontested factual proverbial “data points,” than a primary conflict in choosing how to represent history could be the same ongoing tension between tradition and new ideas. To the postmodernist, any possible narrative is valid; to the traditionalist, only conventional methods of representing history or worthwhile. To the postmodernist, history can almost tell any story you want it to; to the traditionalist, there is likely one story that is much more desirable than the others. Both Ragtime and Mumbo Jumbo as novels seem to take our conventional views on history and subvert them, similar to how there is conflict between tradition and younger people challenging that tradition. It seems like the themes of old vs. new ideas in both of these novels don’t just exist randomly, but have interesting implications for the idea of postmodernist history as a whole.