Ben Okri's Spirit-Child: "Abiku" Migration and Postmodernity

Author(s): John C. Hawley

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Research in African Literatures, Vol. 26, No. 1, New Voices in African Literature
(Spring, 1995), pp. 30-39
Published by: Indiana University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3820085 .
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Ben Okri'sSpirit-Child:
AbikuMigrationand
Postmodernity
John C. Hawley
"Itis a long farewell!
It is now a matterof meetingalongthe road,
It is now in dreams."
-Yoruba prayercelebratingthe change in relationships
wroughtby death

The widespreadnotion of the abiku in Nigerian culture

says volumes aboutthe heartrendingdeathsof countlessnewbornsthroughoutthe
region's history.It also testifiesto a belief in the permeabilityof the membraneseparatingthe spiritworldfrom"our"world.As theabikuputsit, in his familyhe is surroundedby people "who are seeded in rich lands, who still believe in mysteries"
(Fam 6), people who hold that"one worldcontainsglimpses of others"(Fam 10),
andpeople who acknowledgea personalrelationshipwiththese spiritsin thecourse
of daily life. In westernNigeria,however,a motherwho suspectsthathernewborn
is one of these child-spiritsmustdo whatevershe can to persuadethe babyto stay in
this difficult world, ratherthan have it returnto the spirit-worldwhere it will be
bathed"intheecstasyof aneverlastinglove" (Fam 18).Motherswill give suchchildrennames like "Malomo-Do Not Go Again";"Banjoko-Sit Down And Stay
With Us";"Durooro ike-Wait And See How You Will Be Petted";and "Please
Stay And Bury Me" (Maclean51, 57). Specialjewelry and foods are preparedto
temptthe baby to choose life, andcircumcisionfor such young boys is frequently
postponed (56). John Pepper Clark has recorded a poem from one concerned
observer'sview:
Comingandgoing these severalseasons
Do not stay out on the baobabtree,
Follow whereyou please yourkindredspirits
If indoorsis not enoughfor you.
Thenstep in, step in andstay,
Forherbody is tired,
Tired,hermilk going sour
Wheremanymoremouthsgladdenthe heart.(citedin Maclean51)
TheFamishedRoaddramatizestheabiku'sdifficultchoice, aninteriorstrugglethat
adultonlookersrecognizeas beyondtheirken (Fam 20). Wole Soyinkahas a poem
fromsuch a child's pointof view:
In vain yourbanglescast
Charmedcircles at my feet,
I am abiku,calling for the first
And the repeatedtime. (cited in Maclean51)

John C. Hawley

31

But Okrinicely stressestheabiku'sperceivedresponsibilitiestowardthis world,as

well: "I wantedto make happythe bruisedface of the womanwho would become
my mother"(Fam 5).
As I hope to suggest, Okri'schoice of this narratoris particularlysignificant;
but youthfulnarratorshave always fascinatedhim. He will not talk abouthis own
childhoodin interviews,specificallybecausehe believes thatone's youthis inevitably the stuff of one's fiction (qtd. in Wilkinson77). His firstnovel, Flowers and
Shadows(1980), writtenwhen he was 19, is a studyof the impactof the sins of the
fathersupontheirsons. As Adewale Maja-Pearcenotes in a foreword,this violent
storyis nonetheless"anovel of greatoptimism:The cycle of corruptionandevil has
been playedout andJeffia[theyoung protagonist]can begin all over again"(x). In
the short story "LaughterBeneath the Bridge" (Incidentsat the Shrine), a man
reflectsback on his girlfriend'smurderby the militarywhen the boy was only ten.
Honinghis artistry,Okribrieflydoes herewhatit took him manymorepages to do
in Flowers and Shadows;as AlastairNiven notes, "intwenty-onepages a boy has
been educatedin the harshestlessons thatlife can offer"(279). But since the story
is presentedas a memory,we have little way of knowingthe impactthe murderhas
had on the narrator'sown subsequentlife. In the title story from Stars of the New
Curfew,on the otherhand,a youngmanlearnsthecynicalrealitiesof a politicalsystem, andlearns,as well, how to makethe most of it.
Okri's preferencefor youthful protagonistsfinds echoes in the writings of
many of his contemporaries,of course. In comparingthe portrayalof the child in
storiesfromAfrica,India,andAustralia,S. K. Desai notes that
the concept of the child as manifestedin the Africanstories is, what one
might say, moder. The child is no Romanticangel; he is a raw soul, a
bundle of impulses, sensations, emotions and perceptions,facing life,
strugglingto comprehendit, tryingto piece togetherhis fragmentaryexperiences;he is a complex being with an unformedmind,often morecomplex thanthe adult,subjectedto an unpredictableprocessof growth.(45)
Okri'suse of the abikuis, perhaps,the most cogent andconcentratedversionof the
poignancyof such a witness:this is a characterwho still remembersbits of knowledge acquiredin his formerlife, one who can often see throughthe materialworld
of objects,one whose apparentbewilderment("Iprayedfor laughter,a life without
hunger.I was answeredwith paradoxes"-Fam 6) is really clairvoyance("As a
child I could readpeople's minds.I could foretelltheirfutures"-Fam 9).
But Okri'schoice of an abikunarratordoes morethanintensifyyouthfulpowers of observation.Describing a broadlyAfrican aesthetic,he says that "it's not
something that is bound only to place, it's bound to a way of looking at the
world...in more than three dimensions.It's the aestheticof possibilities, of labyrinths,of riddles-we [Africans]love riddles-of paradoxes.I thinkwe miss this
elementwhen we tryto fix it too muchwithinnationalor tribalboundaries"(qtd.in
Wilkinson87-88). The significanceof an abikunarrator,in termsof this aesthetic,
is thatit moves Africanliteraturecloser to the postmodernmovement.
In a recentinterviewwith AlastairNiven, ChinuaAchebe turnedhis attention
to the new generationof Nigerianwriters,amongwhomcould be numberedFestus
Iyayi, Adewale Maja-Pearce,Niyi Osundare,and Bode Sowande. He mentioned
thathe particularlyadmiredBen Okri,andsaidthis, Niven relates,as if consciously
passingthe torchto the youngerman (Niven 277). WhenBen Okriwas laterasked

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how he relatesto the oldergenerationof Nigerianwriters,however,he responded,

"Iacceptthem"(qtd.in Wilkinson82). His lukewarmacknowledgmentof his forebearssuggeststhathis agendaforfictionis not whathe imaginestheirsto havebeen.
In this respect,TheFamishedRoad offers supportto AlastairNiven's analysis
of a differencebetween the writersof Okri's generationand those in whose footsteps they follow: "Alwaysin Achebe, Ngugi, Armah,SoyinkaandOusmanethere
is the judgementthatthe futuredevelopmentof Africa must lie in politicalaction,
whetherthatcomes frombetterleadership,as Achebewouldhope,orfromthe force
of popularaction, as advocatedby Ngugi and Ousmane.Okri does not have that
faith in a political possibility. He turnsthe problemsof Africa into self-examination"(281). Storiessuch as "LaughterBeneaththe Bridge"andSongs of Enchantmentare implicitcondemnationsof tribalbattleswithinNigeria,but, in wordsthat
practicallycry out for misinterpretationby the more politically-minded,Okrihas
statedthat"...there'sbeentoo muchattributionof powerto theeffect of colonialism
on our consciousness. ....[A] trueinvasiontakesplace not when a society has been
but in termsof its mind
takenover by anothersociety in termsof its infrastructure,
andits dreamsandits myths,andits perceptionof reality.... Therearecertainareas
of the Africanconsciousness which will remaininviolate"(qtd.in Wilkinson86).
This consciousnessis less personalthanit is "African."
While Niven's analysisis basicallycorrect,therefore,his descriptionof Okri's
storiesas "self-examination"maybe focusedtoo narrowlyon the individual.InThe
FamishedRoad and Songs of Enchantment,Okriis not intentupon replacingone
rulingsystem by another,butneitheris he writingtraditionallyrealisticnovels that
thoroughlyinvestigateAzaro's psyche. He wishes insteadto recognize and celebratea distinctiveway of encounteringand describingreality:he has an aesthetic,
ratherthan overtly political or psychological, aim. In comparingMongo Beti to
Wole Soyinka,Abiola Irelesuggeststhatthe formeremphasizes"thecriticaldocumentationof the objective operationsand effects of the political system he examines," and the latter"inclines more towarda generalmeditationupon the inward
significanceof the relationsof power and the tensions of history, [and]upontheir
repercussionson the individualas well as the collective sensibility"(77). Okri,
I would suggest, moves beyond Soyinka's examinationof characters.He says of
TheFamishedRoad that"thisbook is my modesteffort to...alterthe way in which
we perceivewhatis valid andwhatis valuable"(qtd.in Wilkinson87): he wishes to
grinda lens andteachus its use.
If Soyinka can be taken as a mediatorbetween the overtly political and the
more self-consciously aesthetic,it is interestingto note his own use of the tropeof
the abiku.In his HerbertReadMemorialLecture,deliveredat the Institutefor ContemporaryArt in Londonin 1985, he notes thatit is temptingto use the abikuas a
metaphorfor the phenomenonof creativity.Suggesting the controversyover the
role of politics in artandits proliferation,though,he goes on to ask:"wouldit be an
optimisticmetaphororanexpressionof doom.... Will the creativehandearthAbiku
once for all, orhas the worldbeen handedover to Dr. Strangelove-Third Worldor
Netherworld,no difference?The problemis whetherone sees, on the cover of an
Ake, an idyllic image of recapturedchildhood,or a figurefleeing in terrorfrom an
uncomprehendeddisaster"(196). The trueartist,Soyinkaseems to suggest, leaves
the questionhangingin the air,seekingto wed outrageto hope. Whetheror not Okri

John C. Hawley

33

explicitly acknowledges it, his own artistry embodies such ambivalence and
suggestshis generation'ssophisticatedblendof artisticexperimentationandpolitical savvy.
The debate over the possible points of intersectionbetween postmodernism
andpost-colonialismis by no meanssettled,andthe case of Ben Okriraisesinteresting questionsin this regard.StephenSlemonnotes thatpostmodernismis variously
definedby FredricJamesonas "thepasticheenergeticsof Westernsociety under
late capitalism,where a 'new depthlessness'in representation-one groundedin
the fetishizationof the image as simulacrum-marks off a profoundlyahistorical
drivewhich seeks to efface the pastas 'referent'andleave behinditself nothingbut
'texts"' (Slemon 4-5), andby IhabHassanandothersas "a catalogueof figurative
propensities(indeterminacy,multivalence,hybridization,etc.) whose ludic celebrations of representationalfreedom...are grounded in a 'dubious analogy'
between artisticexperimentationand social liberation"(Slemon 5). Linda Hutcheon strategicallyargues that postmodernismdisplays a "contradictorydependence on and independencefrom that which temporallypreceded it and which
literallymadeit possible"(Poetics 18). In Hutcheon'sview, it seems, postmodernism is a victim of colonizationby history,an anxietyof influencewritlarge.
But if postmodernism"necessarilyadmitsa provisionalityto its truthclaims"
(Slemon5), Slemonandothersarguethat"aninterestedpost-colonialcriticalpractice would wantto allow for the positive productionof oppositionaltruth-claims"
(9). There is in much post-colonialfiction, in Slemon's view, a great deal that is
postmodern:it may be "fundamentallyfragmentedand hybridized;it engages
overtlyin a decentringanddecanonizinglabour;it is enormouslyself-reflexiveand
ironic;it drawsobviously andexcessively on the devices of 'fiction' to demystify
imperialistversionsof 'history';it 'uses andabuses'the receivedcodes of popular
culturein orderto effect a seriousinterventionin the Productionandcirculationof
majorityopinion"(Slemon 10)-and muchof thiscan be seen in Okri'sworks.But
post-colonialfiction also "retainsa recuperativeimpulse towardsthe structureof
'history' and manifestsa Utopiandesire groundedin reference"(Slemon 10). As
LindaHutcheonelsewhereargues,"thepost-colonial,like the feminist,is a dismantling but also constructivepolitical enterpriseinsofar as it implies a theory of
agencyandsocial changethatthe postmoderndeconstructiveimpulselacks"("Circling" 171). In Benita Parry'swords,this involves a recuperation,a remembering
and relearningof "therole of the native as historicalsubjectand combatant,possessorof an-other[sic] knowledgeandproducerof alternativetraditions"(34). And
Parry'swordsaretrueof Okri.
But Hutcheon's descriptionof "a theory of agency and social change"are
vaguelypresent,atbest, in Okri.Beforethepublicationof TheFamishedRoad,critics turnedtheir attentionprincipallytowards The Landscapes Within,his 1981
Kunstlerromanthathas been comparedto Joyce's Portraitof theArtistas a Young
Man (see Porter, Mamudu).In discussing the book, these critics grapple with
Omovo's frequentwithdrawalfrom the problems of the world aroundhim, his
apparentattemptto findor createa quietzone for the creationof somethingbeautiful. A bit defensively,these criticsinsist thatOkri'sprotagonistshows moregumption than his counterpartin Ayi Kwei Armah's The BeautyfulOnes Are Not Yet
Born (1969), despiteOmovo's obviousdesirefor protection.Thus,Abioseh Porter
writesthat,"unlikeArmah'sanonymousprotagonist,who merely driftsaimlessly
and helplessly in a sea of corruption...Omovo...become[s]capable of making

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down-to-earthassessmentsof eventsaroundhim andableto actaccordingly"(204).

The "action"to whichhe refers,however,is principallythe creationof art-art that
is honestand,therefore,a politicallydangerousresponseto thechaosfromwhichhe
has temporarilywithdrawn,buthardlythe sortof actionthatwill topple a government.ButOmovodoes learnwhatDr. Okochatells him,that"[i]t'salwaysa dutyto
try and manifestwhatevergood visions we have.... In dreamsbegin responsibilities" (LW 119). Eleven years later, Azaro learns the same lesson in Songs of
Enchantment.
Ayo Mamududescribesthe artistOmovo's "suspendedanimation"as escapist,
but"onlyin the sense that,in the flightsof fancy, detachment,andretreatsinto self,
Omovo seeks relief for his perfervidconsciousness"(88). All the ugliness that
oppresseshim, becomesgristfor his artisticmill. ForOmovo,in Mamudu'swords,
"passionateinvolvement and detachmentare paradoxicallylinked, in leading to
momentsof heightenedconsciousness"(88). It is interestingthatbothof these critics show a need to demonstratea political consciousness in Okri's character,
implicitly assertingthe author'slineage as a like-mindeddescendantof the established generationof Nigeriannovelists.But he is not, in fact, all thatlike-minded.
In the "compromise"reachedbetween Stephen Dedalus and his alter-pater
LeopoldBloom, the modernistJamesJoyce moves awayfromthecool aesthetiche
hadearlieradvancedin Portrait.By contrast,in his own mostrecentworkOkrispecifically endorsesthe aesthetiche earlierespousedthroughOmovo:"WhenI think
of Omovo,"he writes,
it's not just as the young artist:he's what the artistin his progression
throughtime, throughage, throughexperiencewouldend up as. So that's
what you are when you're young, but that's what you should be, on a
higherlevel, as you get older:seeing experiencepure, seeing withoutpreconceptions.... He's an ideal filter,a prism:in thatsense he's an ideal artist. He's a complete contrastfrom the artistswho have ideas, distortthe
worldin termsof theirideas,andthenreflectanidea-distorteduniverse.So
it's not the world they're really writing about but somethingproduced
froma refusalto see. (qtd.in Wilkinson81)
If, as anothercritic has written,"the outstandingattributeof the moder African
writer...is his immediateengagementwith history"(Irele 69), one is at a loss to
shoehornOkriinto such a scheme. The political strugglesof The FamishedRoad
andSongsof Enchantmentarefairlytimeless."Wehaveto changeourperceptionof
how we speakof people's accomplishments,"he recentlyargued."Pyramidsis one
way, buttherearepyramidsof the spirit"(qtd.in Wilkinson86). Or,as the abiku's
fatherputsit, soundinga bit like Jung,"thewhole of humanhistoryis an undiscoveredcontinentdeep in our souls"(Fam498). This may supportNiven's contention
thatOkriis interestedin self-examination,but Azaro's fatheris speakingof a collective consciousness.
We shouldalso noteMamudu'ssecondobservation:the"swings"betweentwo
extremes. This dynamic becomes the central structuraldevice in The Famished
Road, andsuggestsOkri'scharacteristicturnawayfromovertpolitics andtowards
what might be describedas the politics of the interior.He has elsewhere significantly describednarrativeitself as "tension,opposites, anythingthat pushes forward"(qtd.in Wilkinson79). If this suggests thatOkri'sprincipaldemandfor his
literatureis thatit move forwardwithinits self-containedfictive world,it is nonetheless true that The Landscapes Within,while acknowledgingthe trope of the

John C. Hawley

35

artist'sescape to a romanticretreat,proposesa theoryof artthatis confrontational,

not lovely (he calls his art "scumscapes").The confrontationis first with the
self. Omovo says "Ineed to face myself beforeI can face the terrorsof this world"
(LW 164). He can "speak"only "whenthe landscapeswithoutsynchronisedwith
those landscapeswithin"(LW206). Then the confrontationbecomes social. As
Okriputsit, "Themomentyou see it, you haveto say it. That'swhereresponsibility
begins"(qtd.in Wilkinson78).
Whetherthe "political"activity is interioror exterior,it is clear thatAzaro is
not realisticin any sense thata nineteenth-centuryauthorwould recognize. He is
more accuratelydescribed as a late-twentieth-centurydoorkeeperbetween two
imaginedworlds:thatof the spiritsandthatof the mortal.The "self,"in the traditionalWesternsense, is thereforenot as rigidlydefined,noras amenableto examination. For the abiku, one's personal vision is a shared possession of the
community,andone's idea of self is a directresultof the interchange.
We do well to make a distinctionbetween Omovo, the youthful artist,and
Azaro, a non-Westerncreationimbeddedin his community.Both The Famished
Road andSongs of Enchantmentembodyseveralaspectsof Omovo's aesthetic,but
they do so ironically.He asserts,first,that"theartistneeds to see the one thing,the
one experience,in relationto all thingstimelessly"(Mamudu89), andAzaroseems
to have little choice but to follow this norm.Omovo furtherassertsthat"the [artist's] heightenedstateof consciousness...representsan intellectualeffort at ordering the universe" (89). But this blessed rage for order takes on a markedly
postmodernsymmetryin Azaro'suniverse,one thatpayscomparativelylittleattention to space andfloatsin a transculturalsynchronicity.Omovo says, "...[T]he sky
has no meaning.The meaningis hiddeninside me as are many othermad things"
(LW164). But Azaro's experienceis different:he findsmeaningfloodinginto the
worldthroughits objectsin sucha madtumultthathe reelsbetweenthe animateand
the inanimate."'Everythingis alive,'" his fathertells him (Song 222). In Azaro's
life it is theplenitudeof thesehiddenmeanings,ratherthantheirvacuity,thatcomes
to the fore. He cannotorderthem,butthey arenot "his"meaningsto order,andit is
largely irrelevantto describehis efforts as "intellectual.""How should I use my
eyes?"Azaroasks his fatherin Songs of Enchantment,andhe is answered:"By not
using yourhead first"(261). The resultingnarrativerevealshistoryas partialeven
as it suspendsall hermeneutics.Closurecannotbe broughtabout,simply because,
as Azaro's motherteacheshim, "Allthingsarelinked"(Songs270).
But is this postmodern?Like Slemon, Helen Tiffin agreesthattherearemany
elements of post-colonial writing that have postmoderncharacteristics-"...the
move away from realistrepresentation,the refusalof closure, the exposureof the
politics of metaphor,the interrogationof forms, the rehabilitationof allegoryand
the attackon binarystructurationof conceptand language"(172)-but she argues
that"theyareenergisedby differenttheoreticalassumptionsandby vastlydifferent
political motivations" (172). Therefore, "the postmodern label should...be
resisted"(171). Acknowledgingthese distinctions,I believe it is nonethelesshelpfully descriptiveto applythe label "postcolonialpostmoderity" to writerswho do
two things:first,they "resistthe Europeanmasternarrativeof historybecausethey
can essentially oppose its incursions with alternative ontological systems...
[especially]withinthe societies whose own opposingordifferingepistemesarestill
recuperable"(as Tiffinsays ChinuaAchebeandRajaRao do [ 176]);and,secondly,

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they are markedlyexperimentalin theirnarration,carryinginto theirfictionmany

of the postmodernstylisticcharacteristicsdescribedabove.
This, I think,is whatOkriis doing with the conceptof the abiku.It portraysan
ontologicalsystemquiteforeignto the colonizer's,at the same time thatit does not
display a "recuperativeimpulse towardsthe structureof 'history"' (Slemon 10).
Okri'sdiscussionof "TheAfricanWay"(Song 158-61) suggestswhathe does feel
to be recuperable,butit is hardlysystematic:"TheWay thatdevelops andkeeps its
secretsof transformations.
Thrivingin a universeof enigmas,ouraccomplishments
deniedby the dominanthistoryof the short-sightedconquerorsof the times"(160).
As with Westernpostmodernists,this resistanceto the fixing of boundariesis
one of the strongestcharacteristicsto emerge from Okri's discussion of his own
work.His choice of a liminalfigurelike the abikuto serve as his spokesman,straddling bothworldsanddrawingpower fromboth, summarizeshis determinationto
imaginesomethingnew. If his choice of a child-witnessplaceshim firmlyin thetraditionof the novel of the sixties andthe seventies,the unself-consciousmovement
backandforthbetweenthe worldof the spiritsandthatof everydaylife in TheFamished Road places him alongside such proteanextravaganzasas the Trinidadian
RobertAntoni'sDivina Trace(1992). Like the uniquechild-narrator
of thatrecent
novel, the abiku sets himself, Okri says, "againstthe perceptionof the world as
being coherentand thereforereadableas a text. The world isn't really a text, contraryto whatpeoplelike Borges say. It's morethana text.It's moreakinto music....
Texts withoutwords. That's why I probablylean more towardsdreams"(qtd. in
Wilkinson85). Strictlysequentialnarrationis not a value, so whenAzaro'smother
complains to her husband,"Your story isn't going anywhere,"she receives the
reply, "A storyis not a car.... It is a road,andbeforethatit was a river,a riverthat
neverends"(Song266). Narrationis "akinto momentsin tidalwaves" (Okriqtd.in
Wilkinson83).
Not tidalwaves as such,butmomentswithinthem:a forcefulmoving aheadof
the mass, but experiencedfrom within as a series of relationshipsand countervalences. "Thenovel moves towardsinfinity,basically. You're dealing with a consciousness...which is alreadyawareof otherlives behindand in frontand also of
people actuallyliving theirfuturesin the present"(Okriqtd. in Wilkinson83). A
confusingworld,therefore,but"so manythingsthatwill seem puzzlingin the book
areactuallyin thepossibilityof a life lived simultaneouslyatdifferentlevels of consciousness and in differentterritories"(83). We are dealing with a type of realism
here,or at least verisimilitude,butthe worldthatshapeshis character'sconsciousness is shapedby a non-Westernmythology,an animisticappreciationof a surging
andconstantlytransmogrifyingreality.In Okri,the Westerndilemmaof the dissolution of the subjectis celebrated."Isn'tit just possible,"he asks, "thatwe are all
abikus?.... [Since] thereareno divisions reallyin life, just a constantflow, forming
andreforming..."(qtd.in Wilkinson84). This is muchtheconclusiondrawnby the
abiku's father,who, soundinga bit like MikhailBakhtin,tells his son that"many
people reside in us...many past lives, many futurelives" (Fam 499). The masks
employedin his novel-those of the egungunandgelede (Maclean58), thoseof the
political parties,those even of sequentialtime-are recognized as masks by the
abiku.It is the forces of negativitythatsay otherwise,andthatseek stasis:Madame
Koto, the blindold man,the thugs,andeven the spirits,attemptto hold him in their
world(Wilkinson84).

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TheFamishedRoad's opening,with its play uponthe logocentricmetaphorof

John'sGospel, says as much:"Inthe beginningtherewas a river.The riverbecame
a roadandtheroadbranchedoutto the whole world.Andbecausetheroadwas once
a riverit was always hungry"(Fam 3). But the abiku'sfathertells him, "[M]y son,
ourhungercanchangethe world,makeit better,sweeter"(Fam498). The hungerof
the road, somewhat incomprehensiblebut nonetheless threateningto a Western
mind,is "our"hungerto Azaro-a partof us, as "we"area partof it.
This is ratherdisturbingimagery,butOkrihas "cometo realizeyou can'twrite
aboutNigeria truthfullywithout a sense of violence" (qtd. in Wilkinson 81). We
have seen him assertthatthereareessentialelementsof the Africanconsciousness,
the "mythicframe"that"shapesthe way we affect the worldandthe way the world
affectsus. It's theseinvisiblethingsthatshapethevisible things....Theunbreakable
things in us" (qtd. in Wilkinson88). They are here embodiedin the frangible:the
garishrepresentationsof life-and-deathbattles,drenchedin the blood of riots,boxing matches, and sacrificed chickens, a world of intoxication and gleaming
machetes.
Little wonder, then, that the abiku recognizes that "being born was a shock
from which [he] neverrecovered"(Fam 7). Okriacceptsthe fact that"sufferingis
one of the greatcharactersof the book, the differentways people suffer."His rationale for its pervasivepresenceis importantto ourtheme:"Itdefinesthe boundaries
of self butalso breaksdown the boundariesof individualidentifications....Any one
of [the] childrentelling their stories would be telling a storyjust like this one, but
with its own particularity.Therearehundredsof variations,butthereis just one god
there,and thatgod is suffering,pain. But that's not the supremedeity. The higher
deity is joy" (qtd. in Wilkinson 85). This seems a bit Manichaean,but is another
instanceof the wave-likeconsciousnessof the book.
If you listen carefully,"Azaro's fathertells him, "theair is full of laughter"
(Fam 499), andthe abikuachieves a sense of joy, andeven peace. At novel's end,
the airhas cleared,the spiritsseem in abeyance.The next day begins, and,it is true,
he recognizesthat"thegood breeze"will notlastforever-but he is no longerafraid
of Time (Fam500): he has learnedto swim in it. His consciousnessremainsfocused
andcourageous,andcomfortablein its stateof flux.This standshim in good steadin
Songs of Enchantment,when the usual strainsof adolescence are complicatedby
the estrangementof his parents,the deathof his best friend,andthe collapse of the
politicalsystem.
Yet if, as the Greekphilosophernotedlong ago, all thingsareflowing,it is little
wonderthatmany on this "roadof...vulnerability"(178) are not as resilientas the
abiku.Okriis obviously awareof this fact, and it is significantthatthe struggling
artistwho figuredin anearlynovel like TheLandscapesWithinhas beenreplacedin
The Famished Road by the figure of a photographer.Like that photojournalist,
whose eye fixes realityin the civic memory(who, in effect, does a "freeze-frame"in
life's ongoing film), Okri says thatone of the things he himself wantedto do was
'just to make visible one of the stories of the river,that's all. Justone...." (qtd. in
Wilkinson88; emphasisadded).It is, admittedly,morestaticthanthe flowingaural
accountfroma griot, but anabikuspokespersonis as close as a writercan get to the
semblanceof images passingaway andcoming into view.
Criticslike Niven lamentthat"Okriandhis generationwill be moreintrospective, more personal,less historicallyambitious,less radical,than Achebe and his
peers"(282). Okri,in turn,is concernedthatthe relative"quietude"at novel's end

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might be mistakenfor an easy optimism.The abiku's fatheradvises his son that

"Godis hungryfor us to grow.... We arefreerthanwe think....Themanwhose light
has come on in his head, in his dormantsun, can never be kept down or defeated"
(Fam 498). If his words strikeotherAfricannovelists as naively optimistic,Okri
wishes to demonstratethathe knows what he is doing. "Oneshouldbe very, very
seriouswhenone is going to talkabouthope,"he writes. Onehasto knowaboutthe
very hardfacts of the worldandone has to know how deadlyandpowerfulthey are
beforeone can beginto thinkor dreamoneself intopositionsout of whichhope and
then possibilitiescan come. It's one of the steps I try to take in this book"(qtd. in
Wilkinson88).
In the sequel, the optimisticfatherof TheFamishedRoad becomes blind and
spends his days shoveling manure.But his life-affirmingphilosophybecomes, if
anything,stronger.In the earlierbook,the abikuconcludedthat"adreamcan be the
highestpointof a life" (Fam500). Herein theincreasingpovertyof his earthlyfamily's life, he puts it differently:"Maybeone day we will see thatbeyond our chaos
therecould alwaysbe a new sunlight,andserenity"(Song297). If this "manifestsa
Utopian desire grounded in reference"that is typical of post-colonial writing
(Slemon 10), the abiku,in his tenuousearthlypresence,firstchooses the chaos.

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