When we first started Mumbo Jumbo, I felt completely overwhelmed by the rush of new characters, confusing scenes involving an obscure "epidemic", and phrases such as doo-whack-a-doo which isn't even English. With Ragtime, the plot was pretty straight forward and you could pretty much predict when Doctorow was going to change viewpoints and follow another character for a while; and Ragtime was just overall a much easier read. I initially approached Mumbo Jumbo the same way I had approached Ragtime: as though it were clear, straightforward, and something I could just read through once and be able to get the quiz down. Well, my first Mumbo Jumbo quiz certainly would prove that wrong. I realized that if I was going to retain anything I had read I was going to have to take notes on the chapters, and read in a area with no distractions. I suppose Mumbo Jumbo was an enjoyable enough book; there were definitely some humorous scenes, and strange happenings like in the Moses story to keep your attention.
The most useful thing I have learned (partly through frustration, but mainly through reading my panel presentation article by Roxanne Harde) to keep in mind while reading Mumbo Jumbo is to not take Reed's words too literally, but also don't take everything at face value. If you take things too literally, then it would be very easy to get offended by the book. on the other hand, if you aren't looking into the story for a deeper meaning/ allusion at all then you can miss a lot of what Reed's saying.
I can't exactly say I like Mumbo Jumbo. It's not really my favorite style of writing with all the randomness and bending of well known stories, but I got through it.
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