ABSTRACT
When Mumbo Jumbo, Ishmael Reed's satiric novel about the twenties' HarIem Renaissance and blacR and white history appeared in 1972, it was hailed for its fantastical free-wheelinq taRe on American culture. Within the context of those truly psychedelic multicultural times of the late sixties and earIy seventies, the novel was a perfect prism for examininq blacR history, with its sharp-focus sidebars and divaqations on his favorite areas of interest: Eqyptoloqy and the Osiris myths, voodoo, jazz and the birth of the blues, Masonic conspiracies, ofay hipsters and hepcats, left-and riqht-hand path maqic and mysticism, plus of course (and always underneath as the beat) the struqqle of qood and evil, themes he still explores today. Thouqh a bOOR of its time, nevertheless, it was timeless in its cultural sweep and in its evocation of the livinq spirit of American history, seqreqated as well as inteqrated, a present with a presence of the past and usinq the twenties in HarIem to taRe a snapshot of America in media res.
