Defining Jes' Grew....

So this is another post are I started right before Agora days and just finished off.

Jes' Grew is obviously a central issue and plot engine in Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed but it is also one of the more ambiguous and unfamiliar concepts that the book introduces. So, how is a reader to understand a book at all when they don't understand what the main theme is? And, why would an author ever want to write a book whose central theme is so unclear? These are questions that I was thinking about while reading. Through class discussion and mulling over readings in my head, I have come up with a few speculations and ideas about Jes' Grew that I find satisfactory. Since we are just finishing the book now, I think that a blog post discussing all the clues about Jes' Grew is in order to round off my thoughts and bring the novel completely to a close. With that I begin:

Jes' Grew is introduced in the first chapter of the book as an epidemic disease that is rapidly consuming the nation. The reader is now intrigued but soon the intrigue turns to confusion when the reader begins to realize that the "victims" of Jes' Grew are suffering from symptoms that make them sing and dance. Slowly, the reader realizes that Jes' Grew is not an actual "disease" but on the contrary, somehow related to music, specifically the newer "race music" like jazz that was sweeping the country amongst young people despite the efforts of the older generation to stop it.

In class, we equated Jes' Grew to jazz culture and music but, by the end of the book it is obvious that this equation is not quite correct. Jes' Grew dies out but Jazz does not. So the question is: if Jes' Grew does not equal jazz (although they are related) what is it? We almost must add one more idea to our analysis, the fact that the supporters of Jes' Grew feel that Jes' Grew is more alive and effective without a text. So add that to the question.

I want to propose that Jes' Grew is the feeling related to the act of taking part in a counterculture specifically having to do with art. It is almost a feeling of rebellion. This also goes back to the idea of art "dying" in museums and cultures becoming museum pieces. What evokes the wild responses from the public is not just the music but the novelty of it and that slight feeling that maybe someone infected with Jazz is getting away with something. Jazz music is still played and popular but yet there are no "epidemics" of jazz where the nation can't resist the music. Why? because the Jes' Grew is gone. Jazz has museums, festivals, and a hall of fame now. It is not novel. It is not counter-cultural. It's just a genre of music now and as it became a genre, more and more criteria were imposed upon it to keep it within the confines of the newly created genre. The jazz musicians from the first generations wanted to be recognized as a legitimate style of music but with recognition came standardization and the music is turned into a concept. Jes' Grew dies and its a museum piece.

I just want to briefly mention an example I brought up in class: graffiti culture. In America, graffiti is seen as vandalism. It seems to just grow overnight and the government wants to stop it. In some cities in Europe, on the other hand, graffiti is seen as an art form and a way for the city to make money so the city rents walls and garage doors to artists who paint only their rented space. The art form has really developed there as a result but not without a casualty, Jes' Grew. There are two effects of Jes' Grew's death. First, the statements that the graffiti make tend to be less radical because the government knows exactly who painted what. Second, paying the government to do their art seems like selling out to the more extreme artists.

So, my conclusion is that Jes' Grew is not jazz music or culture, or anything material for that matter. Jes' Grew is a feeling. A feeling that inspires people and incites the creation of art. A Jes' Grew text is not significant because a text could just compromise the idea of Jes' Grew completely. Mumbo Jumbo is not the only example of Jes' Grew either. As PaPa LaBas says, it has popped up many times and will always continue to arise.