Storage for Minji's Thoughts

An interesting topic of discussion surrounding Mumbo Jumbo is the significance of Reed’s divergence from typical detective novels. Though the structure can be seen as generally conventional, with Papa Labas serving as a detective and the text serving as the main mystery of the novel, there isn’t much else in Mumbo Jumbo that truly adheres to conventional detective fiction. I personally think that Reed was just as intentional in diverging from the genre of detective fiction as it is accepted in Western culture as he was in diverging from Eurocentric culture within the actual content of his novel. One way that Reed defies the structure of a detective novel is that the detective in his story, Papa Labas, does not use pure evidence and reason throughout his journey. Papa Labas definitely relies on religion throughout the whole novel. Additionally, when he reaches the end of his quest and finally catches HVV and Hubert Safecracker Gould, he doesn’t use concrete evidence to arrest th...

            Last week, we discussed the ending of Ragtime , and the general consensus was that it was a happy ending. Though it does seem to end happily for the newly-formed family, the endings for some of the other characters that we didn’t have time to discuss in detail, don’t necessarily achieve the happily-ever-after ending that Mother, Tateh, and their children get. It also seems that many of the characters that don’t end up very well are also the characters that wield the most power/privilege amongst the characters in the book.             One character we didn’t discuss in much detail at the end of the book was Morgan. The last scene of Morgan is him in Egypt, not being able to experience the revelation he was searching for throughout the book. Though Morgan is unbelievably wealthy, he doesn’t seem to be nearly as content with his life as the newly-formed family does by the end of the book....