Mumbo Jumbo so far has been exactly as it sounds in my reading of the book, it has been very jumpy and I have admittedly struggled to understand it. Many of the important things in the book seem to be extremely easy to skip. I find myself reading and then checking back after a second to reread a passage because it seemed like someone said something very subtly that was infact quite profound. I think the comparison of the book to someone clicking through the news is quite accurate at least for the first few chapters of the book as it throws information at you very quickly and you need to almost sort through it to find the actual relevant news. I also wanted to state that I really enjoy the wavy font in the book it is by far my favorite font Reed uses.
I also noticed a history vs fiction argument appearing on page 37 where Abdul talks about his poor school education, stating that "I always wondered why the teachers just threw knowledge at us when we were in school , why they didn't care whether we learned or not. I found that the knowledge which they had made into a cabala stripped of its terms and the private codes, it's slang, you could learn in a few weeks." I think this effectively states the argument of what real history is in the minds of both Doctorow and Reed, they believe that there are two types of history, one that is nothing but fact with no background or deeper understanding and one that attempts to put you into the situation in which the history occurred so that one can understand the depth and significance of went on. By viewing the environment and culture in full, through the use of "slang" and "private codes", one can begin to come to an understanding of what really went on behind the facts that have been presented. Since it is unusual for the small surrounding details of that slang to be expressed in most historical records one must recreate an environment that represents the time in which you want to know about even if it becomes a little played up so that one can see the importance of things more easily.
