Jes Grew’s Endgame

            During this whole epic journey of searching for the Text I never once guessed that in the end Jes Grew would be able to continue after the book had been destroyed. Looking back the whole idea of finding this definitive Text, is an extremely Atonist idea. Atonist religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam revolve around holy texts and Islam prides itself on never changing the holy text over thousands of years. It would be completely against the spirit of Jes Grew for it to stand motionless for millennia. The ending of this novel is a reminder that while there are certain constants perceived by the Atonists in this world, a movement never dies it just evolves.

Over the past six decades the Civil Rights movement evolved into the Black Power and Black Lives Matter movements. Evolution of a movement is evidence how culture changes and how a movement adapts and continues in different societies. Today, racial inequality is harder to differentiate because it looks so much like everything else. It looks like gentrification and low wages. It looks like debt, tainted water, and poor air quality and hustling to make ends meet. The problem is that while people are hustling, everyone cannot hustle the same. Our social order is not devoid of racial injustice but it is significantly different than the one that existed in the 60s. The same goes for the women’s movement as it evolved into 1^st wave, 2^nd wave, and 3^rd wave feminism.

I also believe that this novel itself puts an interesting twist to the story of Atenism in the 14^th century. In Egypt the pharaoh Akhenaten during his rule replaced the polytheistic practices of the Egyptian state religion with Atenism and deposed its religious hierarchy by cutting away the economic and philosophical power of the Amun, a powerful priesthood. However, the later pharaohs returned to traditional gods and goddesses and Atenism was erased from Egyptian records. I believe that this reverse tale represents how there will be an ever persistent struggle within the current establishment and its narrative that supports their agenda. None of these ideas truly ever die but carry on in the background just like what Jes Grew will do after the destruction of the Text.

Time is truly like the pendulum it is described to be in Mumbo Jumbo because ideas and movements emerge only to face cultural backlash and then they must lie dormant until the ideas are much more acceptable to the cultural moment. As PaPa LaBas says, “We will miss it for a while but it will come back, and when it returns we will see that it never left.” People like Earline who goes to Haiti will continue to advance and explore their histories and beliefs.