Initial Thoughts on Slaughterhouse-Five

I'm really enjoying Slaughterhouse-Five so far. I love the style it's written in; it's sort of casual and disjointed, but it does actually sound like a conversation. There are breaks for memories and the switch between tenses can be a little disorienting at times, but the overall effect is neat. I also like the way that there are elements of science fiction incorporated into the narrative seamlessly. Plot-wise, the meta-fiction aspect of the book is really interesting because it makes us, as readers, look at the novel in a different way. For me, at least, it adds a sense of fabrication--which isn't necessarily bad. The note on the first page is also interesting because it seems to do the opposite; it adds a sense of reality to the fiction.

The Current State of Jes Grew

Since we established at the end of class today that Jes Grew isn't exactly equatable with Jazz, it would probably be a good idea to identify what Jes Grew is. The epilogue adds to our understanding: "Jes Grew was the manic in the artist who would rather do glossolalia than be 'neat clear or lucid.' Jew Grew, the despised enemy of the Atonist Path, those Left-Handed practitioners of the Petro Loa, those too taut to spring from sharp edges, wiggle jiggle go all the way down and come up shaking (211). It sounds to me like Jew Grew describes a mindset more than a specific form of art, music, etc. It describes the seemingly-innate ability of humans to question the world around them. Of course, just because everyone has the ability to think for themselves doesn't mean that they will embrace that ability. As in the narrative about Osiris and Set that Papa LaBas recounts, there will always be people who will be resistant to the idea of change, lack of order, and spontaneity. So anyway, for my purposes, I'll refer to Jew Grew as the phenomenon in which people embrace their ability to make decisions for themselves and the idea of change.

So what about Jes Grew today? I would agree with LaBas when he says "Jes Grew has no end and no beginning...we will miss it for a while but it will come back, and when it returns we will see that it never left. You see, life will never end; there is really no end to life, if anything it will be death. Jes Grew is life. They comfortably share a single horse like 2 knights. They will try to depress Jes Grew but it will only spring back and prosper" (204). This makes the whole idea of Jes Grew more clear to me in that as long as someone is willing to keep it alive, Jes Grew will not die. Thus, I think Jes Grew is certainly still alive today.

One of the first examples that comes to my mind of Jes Grew being present today involves the food industry. When fast food first became big, it was celebrated for its convenience, affordability, and general yumminess. As the years have gone by, the food industry--and fast food chains in particular--have become increasingly vague and distant. By that I mean to say that it has become very easy and convenient for us to forget about how and where we obtain our food because the industry has made it so. Out of sight, out of mind, right? With the increasing level of detachment comes a general lack of awareness. In more recent years, though, people have begun to realize that there's a real problem when we don't even know what we're eating anymore. To tie this back to Jes Grew, people have begun to question what's going on; they want more transparency and more options. They are going against the order and power the big names in the food industry have created, and as long as there are people who are willing to challenge the status quo, Jes grew will live on.

Learning from Myth

In class today, I talked about how I felt like the story Papa LaBas tells was myth and seemed too oversimplified to apply to society as a whole. I'd like to expand on that here; first of all, I think it's certainly fair to call the narrative either fiction or myth (or both) because in my mind, they're almost the same. I just think of the two being different in that myth traditionally is passed through oral tradition and therefore varies a lot. I think of fiction as a less changing form of narrative. But in any case, I still stand by what I said in class; I don't think the conflict between Osiris and Set can explain society as a whole (which was the original question). I think that would be a gross oversimplification. However, I definitely think the dynamic between the two does tell us something significant. It's recognizable and brings the point home that there will always be people whose viewpoints about the world differ in such a way as to cause conflict regularly. Like Nikita was saying, we can apply that dynamic to recognize similar situations that we deal with all the time--any time we have a conflict, in fact.

Depiction of Western Culture and White Characters

As much as I would like to reiterate the amount of confusion this book causes, I'll instead attempt to put together something at least a little significant. This is based on the prompt from class today regarding the way Reed chooses to depict Western culture and white characters:

It's certainly not a favorable view of western culture that Reed presents in writing Mumbo Jumbo. All of the main white characters (Biff Musclewhite, Thor, and Hinkle) are presented in a negative light--namely, as power-hungry, unreasonable, and largely intolerant. Biff, for example, is just the muscle behind everything; he's essentially a hired thug. Meanwhile, Hinkle is presented as smart but also power-hungry. He almost seems like a total maniac to me, given the way he's so determined to join the Wallflower Order in crushing Jes Grew. Even Thor, who at first seems like he is able to make decisions for himself eventually ends up being sympathetic to his companions.

On a side note, the names in this book are too ridiculous to ignore. I mean, Biff Musclewhite? If that's not an illusion to the fact that Biff is all brawn and no brain, then my name is Joe Shmuck. And what about Black Herman? Or Thor Wintergreen. I feel like these names are supposed to be allusions, and some of them I think I get, but others I'm not so sure. Once again, Reed is winking at me and sometimes I get it, but more often, I have no idea what he's trying to say.

Initial Thoughts on Mumbo Jumbo

I'm not a huge fan of this book. It's so disorienting and completely foreign to me. And it's not that I don't enjoy the concept, it's just that I don't recognize much in this novel, whether it's the setting, characters, plot details, pretty much anything, actually. In terms of plot, I find it really hard to keep track of what is going on, especially because there are so many details buried within other seemingly random bits of information (and pictures, puzzles, etc.). I certainly think there are lots of interesting parts to the book but it requires a lot of work to figure out what's going on. More on this when I'm more clued in....

Ragtime: More that Just a Novel

The following is my response paper on Ragtime. I think it better illustrates why I think the novel does have a point.

At first glance, Ragtime’s detached narrator and unusual mix of fictional and real characters can easily be used to pass off the book as pointless. This couldn’t be further from the truth; not only is Ragtime not pointless, but it also speaks great volumes as to the nature of historical truth. In writing the novel, Doctorow calls into question the way we think about history—namely, as distinct from fiction in its “truth.” His cast of characters and their relations to each other, along with ambiguous narration, create complex situations which help illustrate the multi-faceted nature of history.

One of the first things readers are bound to notice in reading Ragtime is its narration: detached almost always and ambiguous often. The first couple lines read,

In 1902 Father built a house at the crest of Broadview Avenue hill in New Rochelle, New York. It was a three-story brown shingle with dormers, bay window and a screen porch. Striped awnings shaded the windows. The family took possession of this stout manse on a sunny day in June and it seemed for some years thereafter that all their days would be warm and fair. (Doctorow 3)

The tone is very dry and sounds almost as if it could be the narration of a documentary. One reason Doctorow may have chosen to keep his narration detached is that it mimics the way in which history is presented. Historians take great pride in their writing being purely fact-based, scholarly, and unbiased. In writing in a style similar to that of historians, Doctorow seems to invite us to re-think the way we distinguish history from fiction. Furthermore, he doesn’t name some of the most important characters in the novel: Mother, Father, Younger Brother, etc. This adds to the sense of detachment Doctorow creates through the narration.

Similar to the way the narration resembles historical discourse, the ambiguity it creates can also be seen as a parallel to the nature of history. Doctorow seems to be pointing out that there are many different ways to interpret situations, and that history generally strives to paint a monochromatic picture. One of the best examples is Doctorow’s description of Ford: “He had caused a machine to replicate itself endlessly…Tears were in their eyes. He allotted sixty seconds on his pocket watch for a display of sentiment. Then he sent everyone back to work” (112). There are many ways to interpret this statement: Doctorow could simply be pointing out Ford's discipline and nature; on the other hand, given the nature of Ford's whole theory, we may be inclined to view this as Doctorow mocking Ford's lack of humanity. Both interpretations are valid because there is no way to verify what Ford was thinking (nor does it really matter) and because a second-hand account is inevitably skewed. There is no way to completely accurately portray any person or circumstance, as there are so many layers to everything, and Doctorow subtly points that out to readers.

Perhaps the most unique part of Ragtime is the way the cast of characters—both fictional and “real”—interacts with each other. In writing in characters we recognize, Doctorow simultaneously molds them to meet his purposes and creates his own version of these people. For example, he doesn’t claim that he is presenting Ford and Morgan exactly as they lived. Instead, he says,

I'm under the illusion that all of my inventions are quite true. For instance, in Ragtime, I'm satisfied that everything I made up about Morgan and Ford is true, whether it happened or not. Perhaps truer because it didn't happen. (Levine, 68-9)

Doctorow completely acknowledges that he made up stuff about Morgan and Ford, yet he believes it is still true—in the sense that it could have happened, specifically within the framework of the story he writes. It’s also true in the sense that Doctorow describes dynamics that readers recognize. This is a great example of when an author is able to embrace uncertainty and run free with an idea to address certain points, whereas a historian would most likely feel the need to choose a particular theory or interpretation to portray.

It all comes down to what we, as a society, have come to expect from fiction and history. We allot an author a lot more creative license than we do to historians, and that creates a lot of the distinction we perceive. Having said this, it is still important that we remember that history and fiction aren’t all that different, especially since we have an unspoken idea of what we think the distinction is. Doctorow serves us very well in this regard; he makes up things for real characters without so much as considering their ridiculous nature. At the same time, he makes it seem like he has done plenty of research on fictional characters. For instance, Doctorow’s Morgan “[L]istened to the dark and stared at the dark and waited for whatever signs Osiris would deign to bring him. After some hours he dozed….He became aware of being crawled upon” (Doctorow 262). It seems outlandish that J.P. Morgan tried to spend the night in a king’s chamber in the middle of the desert, and serves as a reminder that this is Doctorow’s created version of Morgan. In contrast, Doctorow pretends he has researched Coalhouse Walker Jr. even though he is not a real person:

Here, given subsequent events, it is important to mention what little is known about Coalhouse Walker Jr. Apparently he was a native of St. Louis, Missouri....There were never located any of his school records in St. Louis and it still is not known how he acquired his vocabulary and his manner of speaking. Perhaps by an act of will. (152-3)

Again, we see that although Coalhouse is a fictional character, he isn’t any less real than Doctorow’s representation of Morgan. In fact, to many readers, Coalhouse may seem like he is based on a real person. In any case, Doctorow does a remarkable job of mixing up his “constructed real” and fictional characters, making us reconsider our notion of truth.

Most readers will probably find Ragtime an interesting read plot-wise, but the novel’s real merit lies in the way it questions our ideas about history and fiction, and how we respond when the line between the two blurs. Through narrative and a unique cast of characters, Doctorow creates a novel that’s more than just a novel.