Page Four THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, October 14, 1 Y f 3 Page Fo u rTHE MICHIGAN DAILY 5unday, October 14, 1913 Reed. By EUGENE ROBINSON MUMBO JUMBO By Ishmael Reed. New York; Bantam paperback, 249 pages, $1.50. CHATTANOOGA By Ishmael Reed. New York; Random House, 55 pages, $5.00 ISHMAEL REED writes crazy nonsensical novels that would be totally irrelevant if-.not for the fact that they always event- ually make a point. Full of al- legory and humor and slap- diddle, they slither between fact and fantasy like a crafty snake hiding in the grass. His books would have to be placed in the large, loose cate- gory of the socially important historical novel. But such a def- inition is misleading: His his- tory is of his own creation, wildly rewritten to fit his manic vision of the past; and his works can be called novels only in the broadest sense of the Chronicling word, as they sometimes show little or no characterization and contain plots as coherent as a Pentagon press briefing. Reed's main virtue lies in the fact that he is the liveliest and most significant black novelist writing today. His books are about blacks, but not about ac- complishments or achievements or the NAACP, for C h r i s t' s sake. Reed instead manages to chronicle the spirit of black people as few o t h e r writers have. And though he sometimes despairs that this spirit is dy- ing, the sheer exuberance of his writings attests to the fact that it lives on, at least in him. SQ WHAT ANA I talking about? Mumbo Jumbo, that's what. Mumbo Jumbo relates at break- neck speed the rise and fall of a mystical, black-influenced "di- sease" called "Jes Grew" (As in, I don't - know how this blamed thing started, it jes' grew'). The book is a curious cross between voodoo and writ- ing, with Reed proving himself a master of both. In a confused nutshell, Jes' Grew begins in New Orleans, much to the chagrin of the p o w e r s that be. A constant theme running through Reed's work is the notion of the exist- ence of a mystical society that secretly controls the world. This mythical organization takes on different forms from novel to novel. In Mumbo Jumbo, it is the clandestine Wallflower Or- der. Infected with Jes' Grew, all the young folks are dancin', jitterbuggin' mind you, and that just ain't the way it should be. The Wallflower Order does not like the looks of things one bit, and are willing to take any means .necessafy to restore to the world the austerity and dull- ness that they so righteously covet. The bizarre course of this in- sanity is seen through the eyes of Papa Labas, a black mystic and the proprietor of the Mum- the] bo J u m b o Kathedral, a New York voodoo house. Jes' Grew begins to spread from its hum- ble beginnings in the Louisiana bayou, s 1 o w I y, inexorably to- ward New York. That's the key . . . the time factor . . . be- cause if it reaches New York, the whole world will be doomed to this jitterbuggin', jive-ass phenomenon. J ES' GREW, of course, is a metaphor for the famed Har- lem Renaissance of the Twen- ties-a time of flowering for black arts and letters, a time when blacks like Countee Cul- len and W.E.B. DuBois and a host of others got uppity. A masterstroke is that Reed chose this time period, this time of great black expressiveneess, as the nexus for his description of the black spirit. There was something mystical then, some- thing essentially vital, some- thing which Reed suggests has been gone for a long time and won't be around again for a black while. The book's liner notes make it clear that R e e d considers himself first of all a poet. Chat- tanooga, his latest slim volume of verse, places Mumbo Jumbo, Yellow-Back Radio Broke Down, and The Free-Lance Pallbear- ers-his three exciting novels_ in the unlikely position of a backdrop and explanation for his poetry. Reed's poems may be his most significant work. Chattanooga's verse is bitter, funny, a 1 w a y s ironic, well- phrased; and once again an ex- position of the black spirit. The title poem is about Reed's home town, and he openly shows his bitterness on the s u b j e c t: "Chattanooga w h o s e Howard Dunbar Negro I School taught my mother Latin / Whose Mil- ler Bros. Department / Store cheated my Uncle out of / What was coming to him / A pension, he had only 6 Months to go / Chattanooooooooooooooooga. The p o e in "Chattanooga," spirit with its bitterness, is positioned at the front of the book, a load Reed apparently felt obliged to get off his chest. Other poems like "Haitians," "Skirt Dance," and "The Decade That Scream- ed" reiterate Reed's fascination with voodoo and black mysti- cism. The poems are entertaining and meaningful in their own right, but they take on new sig- nificance when viewed in the context of his novels. They be- gin to make sense, establish a pattern, describe a black spir- itualism too multifaceted and diffuse to explicate here. - REED HAS shown that heg has has a unified and signifi- cant vision of the world, and he imparts that vision with great spunk. Highly recommended. Eugene Robinson, Co-Edi- tor of The Doily, has a dan- gerously close affinity for Ishmael Reed. Makingfriends with yourself HOW TO BE YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND by Mildred Newman and Bernard Berk- owitz; Random House, New York; 54 pages; $4.95. - --------- --- PRESTON STURGES' PALM BEACH STORY Great screwball comedy features Claudette Colbert, Joel McDrea, Mary Astor and Rudy Vallee in the unlikely roles of a husband and wife posing as a brother and sister in order to fool an eccentric heiress and her brother. SHORT: Chaplin's THE PAWNSHOP TUES.: William Wyler's THE LITTLE FOXES A RC HIT ECT U RE A UD. CIN EMA GUILD Tomight at AU7 and 9:05 Adm. $1 VONNEGUT'S LATEST: Healing a By LAURA BERMAN I LIKE How to Be Your Own Best Friend 'because it is short and direct and optimistic-be- cause it says a lot of encourag- ing things about anyone's poten- tial to become a self-motivated, fulfilled individual. Apparently, other people like this book too be- cause it has soared to the top of the bestseller lists without any gimmicks. No seagull wings. No sex. No glossy bookjacket. And the authors are named Mildred Newman and Bernard Berkowitz. Still, the success of How to Be Your Own Best Friend is hardly surprising. It does, after all, fit neatly into the category of the "wise little book." As Richard Bach or Rod McKuen or even Kahlil Gibran could tell you, wise little books are big business. It's easy to understand their popu- larity: No one likes to read long books and-everyone likes to read something that reveals beauty or wisdom or even sadness without having to bother with symbols or big words. Why read Anna Karenina when Love Story is one-eighth the length? There is another reason for this book's success: People, are unhappy and How to Be Your Own Best Friend purports to show a way to happiness. THE AUTHORS are two psyco- analysts who write in father- ly reassuring tones about "posi- tive hypnosis" and self-responsi- bility. They. claim that most peo- ple are afraid of success, afraid of testing their lirits, afraid of becoming adults. Most are un- willing to relinquish their child life and their child dreams; peo- ple search for figures to replace d Ing plc It is the fortune of a few writers to carry places clearly in their heads that they can transport others with their vi- BREAKFAST OF CHAM- PIONS or GOODBYE BLUE MONDAY By Kurt Vonne- gut. New York: Delacorte Press, 295 pages, $7.95 By MARNIE HEYN Although the dust jacket for Breakfast of Champions or Good- bye, Blue Monday has an in- signia which labels it 'AbNovel,' Kurt Vonnegut's latest book, is no novel. Since the book reads like Billy Pilgrim's life in RADIO KING & HIS U of M and EMU NITE MONDAY Bring Student I.D. and get in FREE DISCOUNTS ON PITCHERS OF BEER 341 S. MAIN-ANN ARBOR A Moving Experience in Sound and Light - U Court of Rhythm Slaughterhouse Five-a series of disconnected incidents - a more precise classification is impos- sible. If I weren't a devout Vonne- gut fan, I doubt I would have read this crazed ramble of lies, painfully acute perceptions, and comic hilarity. In fact, I browsed through it in a bookstore and put it back on the shelf, even though it was on the New York Times Best Seller List. To be completely honest, that's prob- ably why I didn't read it. That was* my (slightly arro- gant) mistake. Which is ok, since Breakfast of Champions is also slightly arrogant in an intellec- tual sense, full of puns and out-. rage and true fiction. Vonnegut maniacs will soon be able to get the paperback edition, and sit back and enjoy as the author plays with his self. N WHAT HE terms his fiftieth- birthday present to himself, Vonnegut undergoes a marked transition in style. The journal- istic precision that dragged read- ers, kicking and screaming, through some very ugly terrain, has been transmuted by the writer's wish to startle a dying planet back to health. This prose is both more tender and more caustic than other Vonnegut I have read-or read into. Another metamorphosis is the degree to which the author in- terjects his own persona into his prose. Earlier, Vonnegut ada- nantly isolated himself from his characters.hI always guessed that hie liked them, but I was also afraid that he hated them. His point of view is now clearly sym- pathetic, although I'm sure he'll never stop tearing his hair over our collective foibles. Vonnegut's auto is now part of his episodic planetary biography. DAVID'S BOOKS NEW ADDRESS: 209 S. STATE-663-8441 25% OFF our bodies ourselves, summerhill, massage, ixtlan, tokien etc. inet Monday was laundry day. He de- velops one ad campaign for white people ("Off to the bridge club while my Robo-Magic does the wash! Goodbye Blue Mon- day!") and one for black people ("Feets, 'get movin'! Dey's got theirselves a Robo-Magic! Dey ain't gonna be needin' us 'round here no mo'!"). The neatest lie of all is Von- negut'sndeclaration thatshe is freeing the characters who have served him so faithfully. He surely knows, as the book jacket remarks, that his behavior will haves the same result as Tolstoy freeing his serfs, or Jefferson his slaves: "They used human be- ings for machinery, and, even after slavery was eliminated, be- cause it was so embarrassing, they and their descendants con- tinued to think of ordinary hu- man beings as machines." But the "machines" refuse to disap- pear. Even if Vonnegut never again mentions Kilgore Trout, he sure- ly will borrow pithy quotes from the poor battered science fiction "machine," b e c a u s e Trout's anecdotes are graphic horror stories about what humans are doing to each other, and to the planet. And as Kilgore Trout's epitaph warns, "We are healthy only -to the extent that our ideas are humane." books their parents and to give them guidance instead of looking with- in themselves. Mildred Newman and Bernard Berkowitz recommend a philoso- phy that falls someplace between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nor- man Vincent Peale. They say your own best friend is yourself so crawl out of the womb and stop relying on others. Make your own choices and accept re- sponsibility for them. Don't deni- grate yourself when you are in error but never forget to con- gratulate yourself when you do something commendable. And re- member, "We are accountable only to ourselves for what hap- pens to us in our lives." NONE OF THIS is earth shat- tering stuff and if you looked, you -could probably find most of what the authors say in other sources, starting with the Bible. How to Be Your Own Best Friend is valuable not for its originality, but for the authors' straightforward approach to their subject. At 54 pages, it's a wise little book. I 1 NEW JAZZ CLUB! FEA TURING THE NEW GILEVANS 20 pc. orchestra Thurs., Fri., Sat. October 18-19-20 LARRY CORYELL October 25 (ONE NIGHT ONLY) IMONDAY sion: Dickens' London, Keroac's Denver, Hemingway's northern Michigan. How fitting it is that a man caught in an chronosyn- clastic infundibulium has the same gift: now we have Vonne- gut's Indianapolis-and perhaps his Ann Arbor? I suspect that Vonnegut extra- polated here from his experi- ences asiWriter in Residence at the 'U' in 1969 to create an en- vironment for the meeting of Dwayne Hoover, berserk Pontiac dealer, and K i l g o r e Trout, science fiction w r i t e r. It is Trout's thesis-that all people other, than the reader are really- machines-which finally drives Dwayne over the brink. There's a haunting familiarity about the Center for the Arts on the hill, lit up like the moon, where Von- negut, introducing himself as author into the book, is invited to a convocation. N0 MATTER. One old friend Vonne-gut. stays in touch with is the creative -lie. His tongue-in- cheek inaccuracy begins with the compound title, Breakfast of Champions is a name for both martinis and Wheaties breakfast cereal. He elsewhere calls the former "yeast shit" and the lat- ter "the poison we have to buy to insure survival." He says no disparagement of either in in- tended. Like hell. Another creative lie, Goodbye Blue Monday is the advertising brainstorm of an. executive of the Robo-Magic Company, hatch- ed out of his misconception that the reason working people hated Garage Sale: _. t at the PRIMO SHOWBAR No deal UAC-DAYSTAR presents \{. a 4 1 Y B. B. K"ING also RADIO KING and his COURT OF RHYTHM featuring the SOULFUL SOULMATES This FRIDAY night, Oct.19--8 p.m. Hill Aud. $3.50-4.50-5.00-5.50 reserved ON SALE NOW MICHIGAN UNION 11-5:30 M-F 1-4 Sat. SORRY NO CHECKS . \' KESEY'S GARAGE SALE By Ken Kesey, Viking Press, New York, 238 pages, $3.95. By MARTIN PORTER THIS BOOK was surprisingly poor, and it wasn't worth fin- ishing. An odd beginning for a book review but nonetheless .-. I found the "5 Hot Items" in Kesey's Garage Sale to be no better than the molding, tatter- ed, and antiquated items that the name implies. I am temptedto stop here but one does not blast a Californian wunderkind, famed novelisttand LSD guru and get away with it so easily. I must explain. It all started . . . Larry was knocking violently on my door trying to rouse me from my cavernous slumber. I stumbled to the door and was greeted by a blast of ecstatic glee. "Kesey's new book is out," he beamed. "I called Viking Press." THE NEWS settled in me slow- ly. It had been a long time since Kesey had written a book. Sometimes a Great Notion and One Flew over a Cuckoos Nest had been filed away in the cata- logue of books that were worth a second reading. They were no more then happy but fading memories on this day. I agreed to drive Larry to the bookstore. On the way we talked. "I heard that it's a collection -of old published and unpublished writings," Larry said. "Stuff from the Whole Earth Catalogue, interviews with Krassner . " Something suddenly clicked a solid sense of a n t i c i p a t i o n began to melt. The book began to sound like a schlock job; pos- sibly perpetrated by the money monguls of the, publishing busi- ness in New York, or worse, by Kesey himself. I shook the thought from my head, but an image of a slightly demented Kesey arose and he squawked in a maddened tone, "So they want another book by Ken Kesey huh?" No, I didn't want a collection: I wanted a novel, another great work that would mainline a shot of adrenalin into the tired blood of contemporary fiction. He had done it before. . Kesey had looked at reality through kaleidoscopic eyes. LSD had not diverted his attention to "another reality." Rather, he interpreted the world from the vantage of a slightly altered state. He looked into the minds of Chief Broom and other mental patients from the simulated psy- chosis of Mescaline. lie saw a universal current that ran be- neath the lives of the hard work- ing Stamper family ("Never Give an inch") in the timber lands of Oregon. That was before Kesey the writer became the celebrity. That was before he and his band of Merry Pranksters became mod- ern folkheroes, before their es- capades were glazed in neon by the pansy piddled prose of Tom New Journalism) Wolfe. But this was acceptable. We could blame the commercializa- tion on Wolfe not Kesey. Besides those were the days when we were frustrated because we had not tasted Owsleys mighty Blue Cheer, and had missed the Grate- ful Dead in the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. Kesey had a role beside his literary one; and it was fun to go for a vicarious ride with a bunch of short-cir- cuited lunies. We could rational- ize it all as we waited for a new book to restore Kesey's name to the anals of respectable fiction. Unfortunately his new book wasn't worth the wait. The es- says have been seen before. The stories have been told. The in- terviews, including one with the Ann Arbors Argus were boring even when they w e r e first printed. Even the highlighted items; an essay on the writing of Cuckoo's Nest and a screenplay based on Kesey's flight to Mexico are not able to put life into this collec- tion. INII1' ll""* E1IBE I/Nl I CRICKET SMITH five piece rock 'n roll band SUNDAY NITE HOURS 6-2 341 S. MAIN ANN ARBOR A moving experience in sound and light SPECIAL! HOT CHOCOLATE 2333 E. STADIUM BLVD. (neiarWashfenaw) Ann Arbor Everyone W Velcome! GRAD COFFEE HOUR Turkish .Arts & Gifts 3rd Annivesary Sale OCT. 15-OCT. 22 SHEEP SKIN MAXI COATS-$150-Now $120 SHEEP SKIN CAR COATS-$125-Now $95 HANDMADE JEWELRY, PUZZLE RINGS & MEDALIONS AI'JANDWVEN DRUGS.huHIIANS F: REDAL CIIOTASIA1TAPESTRY X 11