FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2010
It’s ‘Back to school! Back to reality!’ time. Three and a half months holiday has proved to be really, really looong..until now that I have to go back to lectures, of course. Time has, once again, become expensive. My poor writing is lodging endless complaints to my persona. That’s what happens when you spoil kids. They forget their boundaries lol. But I must be careful with my writing, I make her too angry and she will retreat into herself, sulk and wage a war of writers’ block. But she must know who’s the boss here. To let her play the parent would be like giving a four year old a real gun. Why am I thinking of guns. I’m tryna think what dangerous weapon I could give a four year old in Zim. Am in my second year of Bcom- this is the year that one must choose one’s majors- took up Economics and Finance as majors. So far so good. It is, after all, only the beginning of the year. Economics is great, love the theory and that break-it-down-logic that comes with it. Finance, well, it’s crunching and crunching the numbers. Crunch crunch crunch.
Am presently going through Uwem Akpan’s ‘Say You’re One of Them’. It’s one of those books I got last year and then started reading and then didn’t quite get down to reading and then someone came and borrowed it and went and went and went with it and now I had to ask and ask and ask to get it back. It’s pretty irritating, how people borrow books and never bring them back. I think I now have less than half of my books left- the rest are somewhere with someone. It gets me thinking, I should ban people from taking them. But then, if I’ve read them, it wouldn’t serve them well to just sit on the shelf and look pretty now would it? If only people could be trusted. So far, am enjoying Uwem Akpan immensely. Again, I picked up this book with attitude- I saw the cover of the little black girl running down that brown stretch of dusty road and thought ‘Oh oh, another “Africa” story’. It’s worse after you read the comments on the first pages- I read ‘…concerned uncompromisingly with the issues facing many people living in Africa now: debt, religiosity, poverty, the venality of rulers….’ and thought with a cynical smile ‘Oh oh’. But this book is pretty amazing- the writing dazzles. I did not get the impression that the stories were of ‘debt, religiosity, poverty etc…’, not in that wholesome sense. It’s their humanity that touches home the most. That’s what I’m loving the most about these tales. They distil the matter down to the core of being. I’m very careful these days about that ‘Africa’ brush. It is a difficult brush, for either side. I think it is more important to become more interested in individuals, in a person and what makes them tick, instead of singing ‘Africa Africa’ all the time. I think it makes people view others from a distance, this paint brush. You no longer see the individual, but a group within the individual. I’m reminded of Mama Shujaa’s post ‘Lost in America’. It brings interesting dynamics into play. Back to ‘Say You’re One of Them’—I especially love the dialogue, the writer uses it in abundance and you find the characters really really taking shape from the dialogue. I especially loved the mix of French-Anglais-Pigdin Anglais in ‘Fattening for Gabon’. It is rich. Well, am still going through the book. Will write something about it when I’m done. I’ve discovered that writing about what one has read, what one enjoyed and what one did not etc, actually helps with one’s own writing. Sorta like a lesson taught by the self. You move from that passive reader plane to actively thinking about the work. Pretty cool stuff.
Another book that I’ve enjoyed immensely is ‘Black Docker’ by Sembene Ousmane. It was Sembene Ousmane’s first novel. It was first published in 1956 in French, as ‘Le Docker Noir’. It is a semi-autobiographical work and draws from his own experiences and what he saw around him- racism, prejudice— in Marseilles in the 1950s. It tells the story of Diaw Falla, a black docker in a little African community in France. Diaw writes a novel, and takes it to a white writer named Ginette, who promises to help him with its publication. She steals his book and publishes it as her own. Enraged, Diaw confronts her, there is a violent scuffle, and he kills her. The story takes us through Diaw’s trial. The Jury cannot bring themselves to believe he is the one who wrote the book, even after he has quoted fluently, a passage from it. The issue seems to be whether or not the murder was premeditated, and there are varying theories as to the motive for the murder. The tale is more than just about the book itself, the book symbolises all of Diaw’s hopes and dreams—a ticket out of the perpetual hell in the docks, where men are driven like machines, underfed and underpaid, until they die. This tale slices through the fat and goes straight to the heart. It deals with difficult and sensitive matters, and does so unflinchingly. Here is an excerpt, during the trial, when the prosecutor is questioning a professor who has been asked to examine Diaw’s mental condition:
‘Do you have the impression that he (Diaw) is a sex manic?’
‘Among black people, that is natural, and especially when it is a question of a white woman. They are fascinated by the whiteness of their skin which is more attractive than that of the negresses.’
‘So if Ginette Tontisane had refused to submit to him, he could have gone as far as murdering her?’
‘Yes,’ confirmed the professor.
Another passage, where the Judge questions Diaw.
‘Do you like white people?’
‘Do white people like black people?’
‘You are here to answer, not to ask questions,’ he thundered.
‘When I am shown respect, I earn it.’
‘You ought to know that reciprocity is not a condition of love. Do you like white people?’
The black man hung his head. He did not know whether to speak the truth or not…
‘Black Docker’ does not spare the heart. It tackles sensitive and difficult subject matters in a precise 120 pages. Short and powerful, it will not leave you the same. Its ‘ugly truths of an ugly time’ compel you to pause for a moment and contemplate this existence that we labour through. And perhaps because it is a semi-autobiographical work, it comes across as being unpretentious, calling a spade a spade and not a digging spoon. It is an unapologetic piece of work and one gets the sense that the author was in a state of indignation and anger when he wrote it.
I’m also presently reading a book entitled ‘Africa’s Choices—After Thirty Years of the World Bank’ by Michael Barratt Brown. This is not a novel, it’s one of those narratives that offer viewpoints and facts to back them up. It’s an eye opener and makes some compelling arguments. It looks at the World Bank’s Structural Adjustment Programmes in Africa in the 1980s, why they failed, the geopolitical dynamics of Africa at the time, Africa’s debt. It also looks at the formation of the OAU, its initial ideals of a united Africa, and why a united Africa failed to materialise. Quite a mouthful! It then takes a look at the peasant economy in Africa. And such and such. It is an interesting read, one of those packed narratives that are just good to read, to learn about the history of a place from an economics point of view (I think economics is growing under my skin). Such books are good in that they give an ‘unemotional’ point of view, working on logic and facts. So many times when we talk/debate/argue about Africa, it is from an emotional point of view. So it’s nice to read something that illuminates matters in a calm and unemotional manner, giving facts to help the reader understand where the author is coming from.
I think authors of fiction are pretty lucky. You can build on the half truths and flaws of your characters, mould them into something very robust and powerful. Man has found little ways to be a little god. There are some books I’m itching to get my hands on. Chika Unigwe’s ‘On Black Sisters Street’—if her short stories are anything to go by, then ‘On Black Sisters Street’ promises to be quite a read. And the ‘Abyssinian Boy’ by Onyeka Nwelue. Interesting how the power of advertising works. The other day, I walked into a CNA bookshop in my neighbourhood, and ran into Khaled Hosseini’s ‘The Kite Runner’. I didn’t have the money to buy it at the time, but I’d heard so many wonderful things about the book and I was tryna figure out what to trade so I could get it, my shoes or my bag lol. In the end I just stood there, reading the first page, and then the next… until I caught a shop assistant looking at me and so I had to close it and put it back. The next time I went there, ‘The Kite Runner’ had sold out, but ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’, also by Khaled Hosseini, was there. But I wanted to read ‘The Kite Runner’, that’s the book I wanted. So I decided I would not get ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ until I had read ‘The Kite Runner’. It may be better than ‘The Kite Runner’, as some have said, but in my mind, nothing can be better than ‘The Kite Runner’ (in that store and at that time) until I read ‘The Kite Runner’. Yes, so much blurb about the book has brainwashed me and I refuse to buy any book from CNA until they restock ‘The Kite Runner’!