Atonists as a genre of people
Hinckle is a "villain" if there ever was one. He has an eye patch, evil laugh, evil plan, and is hundreds of years old. He answers to a mysterious order that has seemingly one goal, which is to ruin other's fun. The Atonist creed ends with the line "Lord, if I can’t dance, No one shall." Reed is postmodernist in his writings of Hinckle in many areas. In Ragtime, we practically watched as Doctorow reached down his hand and wrote Houdini into the story in an unapologetically postmodern fashion, driving him down the street and crashing him into a pole in front of the family's house. The sheer over-the-top nature in which Hinckle is written reminds me strongly of this postmodern refusal by the author to remain invisible and undetectable in their stories (I felt similarly about "the text" for much of the book. A completely unexplained object that everyone chases, as obtaining it will solve all their problems - the "goober." The idea gets less lazy as the story goes on, but it felt intentionally too convenient at first).
I've come to really appreciate Reed's usage of a character like Hinckle. Him and the Wallflower order are portrayed as pretty silly. They take themselves too seriously; there isn't much justification behind their cause besides childish feelings of being left out. The concept of the Wallflower order and the Atonists makes fun of people like those Superbowl L news reporters in a creative, refreshing way. You can file a given person of influence or media outlet along with a whole genre of uppity white people who wish there was something wrong with minorities expressing pride and a will to live.
For providing us with a relevant, useful* new way to think about the world around us, I really appreciate the insights Ishmael Reed presents in Mumbo Jumbo.
*useful, if you can find another person foolish enough to have tried reading Mumbo Jumbo (which may never happen at our age, or simply just never happen).
To me, characters like Hinckle and how Doctorow plays with Houdini in Ragtime reminds me that what I'm reading is a work of fiction, even though it may include some history. It reminds me to think critically about more details of the story, which I think is exactly what Reed and Doctorow is trying to get us to do. These characters are also vessels through which each respective author can get a message across to us readers. Great observations!
ReplyDeleteI think that video is a great example of Atonism and the fight against it because Kendrick also sampled that exact moment in a song later. He seems to be mocking their misconstruing of his language and he shows he knows exactly what they are doing. It is even more comical when you hear their criticisms in that context.
ReplyDeleteI think this book's idea of atonists holds up surprisingly well in today, as you exemplified with your video. Reed seems to think that as long as there are atonists there will be jes grew and vice versa, so maybe it's not so surprising that as jes grew continues to thrive in culture, the number of atonists will rise. Nice job!
ReplyDeleteOne of the most shocking aspects of the book was, as you mentioned, the absurdity, the over-the-top-ness, of the Atonists. They are the stereotypical villains; von Vampton is an immortal(?), eye-patch wearing villain with an evil laugh, the Atonists are part of an ancient secret order, etc. Equally shocking is how easily we can identify Atonists in our own world, even though they are so absurd... Like the Fox and Friends reaction to the SuperBowl... bizzare
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