The Set and Osiris Story
In Mumbo Jumbo, as in many detective novels, the climactic scene appears as an exposition, where the reader is shown exactly who the murderer is, and the detective explains why and how the murderer committed their crime. In Reed's deconstruction of the detective novel, the reader already knows that Hinckle Von Vampton is guilty, but the "unmasking scene" is still used to explain his motive.
The story jumps all the way back to Ancient Egypt, where it describes the King of Egypt, Osiris, and his jealous brother, Set. Osiris is a Prince, and instead of caring about "princely" things, he focuses more on his education. There, Osiris learns agriculture, and with agriculture comes dance. Osiris becomes a master of both these dances and of agriculture, and so when he becomes King, he teaches this "civilization" to the people of Egypt. They love it, but Set is enraged by the dancing and farming. He wants the people of Egypt to be cannibals, and to go back to killing each other. He sees dancing and farming as wasteful, and specifically dislikes the noise of the dances. This is a strange reflection of the "grumpy old man," telling the kids to get off his lawn. Eventually, Set promises that he will give up on stopping Osiris, if he can perform an escape. Instead, Set betrays Osiris, feeding him to the fish, and claiming the Kingdom of Egypt for himself. Set, then, has great writers try and cover up Osiris, claiming that he slept with Set's wife, when Set in fact slept with Osiris' wife.
This idea, of the back and forth struggle between two people, to rewrite history against each other, with a battlefield not just in Egypt, but continuing to last until modern times, is a very unique one from Reed, and this story of Osiris vs Set is crucial to the entire dynamic of Mumbo Jumbo.
The story jumps all the way back to Ancient Egypt, where it describes the King of Egypt, Osiris, and his jealous brother, Set. Osiris is a Prince, and instead of caring about "princely" things, he focuses more on his education. There, Osiris learns agriculture, and with agriculture comes dance. Osiris becomes a master of both these dances and of agriculture, and so when he becomes King, he teaches this "civilization" to the people of Egypt. They love it, but Set is enraged by the dancing and farming. He wants the people of Egypt to be cannibals, and to go back to killing each other. He sees dancing and farming as wasteful, and specifically dislikes the noise of the dances. This is a strange reflection of the "grumpy old man," telling the kids to get off his lawn. Eventually, Set promises that he will give up on stopping Osiris, if he can perform an escape. Instead, Set betrays Osiris, feeding him to the fish, and claiming the Kingdom of Egypt for himself. Set, then, has great writers try and cover up Osiris, claiming that he slept with Set's wife, when Set in fact slept with Osiris' wife.
This idea, of the back and forth struggle between two people, to rewrite history against each other, with a battlefield not just in Egypt, but continuing to last until modern times, is a very unique one from Reed, and this story of Osiris vs Set is crucial to the entire dynamic of Mumbo Jumbo.
This reading of Mumbo Jumbo's mythology seems to endorse the Great Man Theory of history: a modernist view that history was shaped by just a few great men (in this case, Osiris and Set) as opposed to the postmodernist view that history was shaped by the collective actions of large numbers of people. I think it complicates the Great Man Theory, though, because Osiris embodies the collective instead of being a singular man himself. He lets the spirits of Jes Grew take him over, and shows other people how to be taken over by the same spirits. So he is not a great ruler in the traditional sense, but a populist force that Set, a traditional great ruler, attempts to squash. Does this interpretation still fall under the Great Man Theory, or does it transcend it because of Osiris's views about Jes Grew?
ReplyDeleteStruggles between people to write history in different ways have, as you say, pervaded history. What I immediately thought of when I read this post was some of the readings we did in history with Mr. Leff. Two people would be describing the same event, but the sources they created were so different that it was hard to tell. This all relates back to the supreme control of the historian to frame history through the lense of their personal baises. How would the story of Osiris, Set, and Isis be different if it was told by supporters of Set? And, perhaps most importantly, how do we know which account to trust?
ReplyDeleteI can definitely see how Reed sees Set reflect the values of Atonism he notices around the world, especially through the idea of restraining oneself instead of letting oneself loose to have fun and enjoy life. Atonist culture is largely based upon restraint, from vices such as sex, drugs, and alcohol and hard work, in order to serve god. Set totally reflects these values by being the original wallflower as Osiris impresses everyone with his dancing.
ReplyDeleteThe whole time I was reading that section I was wondering what on earth was happening. Surprisingly, though, it was more readable than the rest of the book because most things happened in chronological order. It was such an extensive buildup to the detective reveal, it seems so ridiculous to picture him standing there and talking through this entire story. I honestly didn't know what to make of the osiris story, but it seems like a common thread in our book to warp the christian narrative. In slaughterhouse 5 there was something about Jesus as well, I believe.
ReplyDeleteI found the Chapters 52 a really interesting subversion of the conventional historical narrative. They interweave mythological, historical, and fictional worldtelling to provide an "infodump", an explanation of everything in the novel, that then turns out to be basically useless. I read it very strongly as a criticism of many of the staples of the Western detective novel.
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