Emi's English Blog

Before I get into how I feel dumb, is it just me or are there a lot of references to Ragtime in Mumbo Jumbo ? Maybe we talked about this in class and I missed it for some reason, but I keep reading something in MJ that reminds me of Ragtime. There was the old guy at the end who said he was actually 29, similar to Tateh, and the foreshadowing of a guy drowning aboard the titanic, like Father with the Lusitania, and at some point I saw something about a Ford car. There were a couple others but I didn’t write them down. If these references are on purpose, which I think they are, then it’s funny because Ragtime was published after Mumbo Jumbo . So…either Ishmael Reed is clairvoyant, which I wouldn’t rule out, or Ragtime is referencing Mumbo Jumbo but only in obscure ways that make it seem like Mumbo Jumbo is actually referencing it………………. Anyway, please tell me I’m not the only one who finished Mumbo Jumbo feeling like I only absorbed about 10% of the words. I got the gist of the st...

The hot topic of History as Fiction seems to be….history and fiction. What is the difference between them? On the first day of class, I was like, what kind of question is that? Obviously, history happened and fiction is made up. Then I realized we were talking about historical accounts and fiction. That’s a little more complicated. The prominent arguments are as follows: Historians all have their own perspectives on an event and only selective information about what occurred. For many years, historians (mainly rich and white and male) firmly believed their records were pure fact. They tried to astrict their work to what actually happened. However, even people who viewed the event firsthand only know what they saw. Every writer has their own biases, experiences, and senses. Perhaps then it is impossible to find a historical account that is unquestionably accurate and captures the whole story. Does that make the works of historians fiction ? Where falls the line? Ragtime is a n...