Usually, if there's a typo within a published text, there will only be one or two, maybe three if the editing staff was really sleepy. But Mumbo Jumbo has a quite a few (four in the first sixty pages, by my count). Some of them are quite unfortunate - a "Jew Grew" rather than "Jes Grew" on page 17, for one - but with so many typos sprinkled throughout the text, I started to seriously question whether these were mere mistakes or if Reed had intentionally placed them there.
What tipped me off was a passage on page 47, when Reed is describing the sort of Dirty Work the Wallflower Order does to people who threaten the Atonist Path. He writes,
"Their writings were banished, added to the Index of Forbidden Books or sprinkled with typos as a way of undermining their credibility."
Since the Wallflower Order seems to be protecting all things Western and Mumbo Jumbo is a book with voodoo and African culture in it, Reed sprinkling his book with typos makes his book seem like a 'banished' book that had undergone edits by the Order, a way of making his fictional Wallflower Order come to life. But this is pure speculation on my part.
Wow...the conspiracy theories start so soon. It's possible that he is trying to make his book more real by ignoring his editors and plopping the idea into our heads that somehow typos might be a sign of something that speaks the untold truth, but that's a bit whacky, even for Reed. I think it's just another way to make a show of throwing away conventions.
ReplyDeleteNice post! It's really cool how Reed seems to referencing his own typos, especially because it throws into question how real the contents of Mumbo Jumbo are. Reed seems to be trying to make it seem like the Wallflower Order has gone through his book and added typos but that implies that the Wallflower Order exists outside the realm of the novel!
ReplyDeleteWow I really like your theory. Reed definitely seems like he's calling attention to his typos and there are so many its hard to believe that they could be an accident. We also talked about in class how the name of the book being Mumbo Jumbo is Reed pointing out that it doesn't make a lot of sense (and that he possibly has intentional typos to continue this feeling), but also showing how America took traditional African culture and turned it into nonsense.
ReplyDeleteYeah and the implication being that the Reed is threatening the Atonist way. It not only brings his fictional Wallflower order to life, but also provides us with an idea of how Reed is thinking about his novel in context. On another level, it plays with language, because postmodernism is all about the importance of word choice, and this deliberately chooses words that are confusing or wrong (like jew grew, or policy instead of police). Perhaps it all serves to undermine the Wallflower Order and western language, since the west destroyed the Mandingo Word Maamajomboo and turned it into a word that literally means something unimportant, confusing, and relates to "primitive" superstition.
ReplyDeleteThat one line opens up so many possibilities! I totally agree that it raises the idea that Mumbo Jumbo was intentionally messed with by later detractors in order to discredit Reed and the contents within- which, given the subject matter and the fact that Jes Grew is an attack on the dominant white culture, is certainly not a strange idea at all. Additionally, it's a classically postmodern move, because it breaks the fourth wall and gets us considering the very nature of the book itself.
ReplyDeleteI think your pure speculation makes more sense than if Reed and his editors actually made this many errors. The Wallflower Order definitely seems more real this way, and history and fiction become interwoven better. I feel like some of the typos, particularly the one with "Jew Grew," are particularly egregious and serve to undermine Reed's message, which makes the conspiracy theory theory seem all the more real.
ReplyDeleteThat's really interesting! Everyone above me seems to have already given my opinion, so I'll just say, personally I hated the lack of commas in lists the most!
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