The Beauty of the Millihelen

We've had multiple discussions in class at this point about what exactly constitutes the difference between "history" and "fiction," and I'm pretty sure the answer that we've all come to is that it's complicated. Like, unfortunately complicated. All of the novels we're reading for this class claim to be historic, and to a certain degree, they are. Ragtime  and Mumbo Jumbo  both incorporate very real historical events and figures. But of course they're not actual history they aren't that  historical in their accounts. This is what makes Mumbo Jumbo  such a pain in the ass to deal with, and I'm positive that Ishmael Reed is laughing at us for having these discussions. Mumbo Jumbo  provides us with an absolutely bizarre meta-narrative that seems so ridiculous, it's morbidly close to reality. For the past 3,000 years, a secret society has been working to uproot humanity from its traditional, non-Atonist roots and move away from natu...

I don't know about anyone else reading this blog post, but for me, there's always been a certain appeal to secret societies. Something about them and the unknown power that they have really has a sense of mysticism or wonder. There's a lot of fun to be had with questioning whether or not the world as we know it is secretly being controlled by some underground organization like the Illuminati or the Deep State. While it almost certainly isn't, there's still something captivating about these secret societies tapping into some ethereal power via rituals and magic to control the balances of the world we live in. That being said, they're also an easy tool for people to leapfrog into whatever absolutely whacky conspiracy theory they want. If we suspend common judgment for just a while and believe that secret societies do actually have some power in controlling our world, they can be used to re-explain the history of practically anything. The U.S. invasion of the Phi...