•ISSUE NUMBER TWO*  1 9 9 7*

author's  decision  to adopt  a
female  persona  represents
the major act of disguise, the
most creative element in the
fictionalisation.  The  mask
never  covers  all  of the  face
and  is  lightly  worn:  com-
ments  on  clothes  and  ac-
counts  of relationships  with
men and women on the writ-
ing programme are presented
as 
the
characterisation  of the femi-
nine voice.

elements 

in 

Ike's decision to cross the
gender barrier  does not sur-
prise. Anthills  of the Savan-
nah  has  already  shown  one
established  Nigerian  writer
responding to the comments
of women readers and critics.
For what its worth, I find the
use of a female persona brave
and intriguing. Ify is curious,
intelligent, anxious to under-
stand  what  she  sees  in  the
United  States  and  keen  to
organise her responses. Only
very occasionally (see below)
does she endow her husband
with unexpected wisdom that
is surprising and worrying.
From what has been said,
it will be apparent  that  this
is  a  travelogue:  a  Nigerian
visits  the  US,  and  writes
about experiences. The most
immediate  comparison  is
with America, their America
by  Ike's  near  age-mate  J.P
Clark,  now  Bekederemo
Clark.  But  the  'student'  in-
volved is far more mature, far
more anxious to get down and
communicate  information
and make the most of a 'learn-
ing experience.'

The attraction of the book
is in the elegance with which
it is written.  Ike's  sentences
are  easy  and  graceful  that
spare  us  almost  completely
the  hesitations  and  repeti-
tions we might have expected
in a transcript of a recording.
Indeed, the pretence that the
work  is  a  transcription  is
quickly  forgotten  as,  in  a
measured,  finely  chiselled
style,  Ify  records  reactions.
One gets the impression of a

Giendon  Books  Supplement

10

conscientious,  perhaps  some-
what isolated participant on a
writing  programme,  witri  no
creative project  in hand,  'she'
turns  with  all  the  self-disci-
pline of a model student to the
task  of recording  reactions to
events  around  'her'.  Like  a
compulsive diarist, 'she' is for
ever  recording  dates,  ad-
dresses,  telephone  numbers,
percentages,  names....

As a  responsible  national
representative  on  a  writing
programme, Ify interviews ftl-
low  participants  about  their
positions as writers, the condi-
tions  i nder  which  they  work
and  the  incomes  they  com-
mand. 'She' also investigates -
without  positive  results  - the
possibility of using US publish-
ers,  and notes with particular
care American attitudes to au-
thors.  On learning  about  the
appointment of Poet Laureates
in  US states,  she' warns  her
shadowy  but  presumably
knowledgeable  husband,  'I'll
need  your  advice  when  I get
home,  on  what  strategy  to
adopt to persuade our govern-
ments and the private sector to
do something tangible to nur-
ture creative writing in Nige-
ria.' (250) Ify is responsive to
ideas and prone to make state-
ments  of self-dedication  - for
example, she likes the idea of
poetry  readings,  and  after  a
visit  to Tom Sawyer  territory
(Hannibal, Missouri), 'she' re-
solves: 'I'll write on any theme
in which I feel competent and
knowledgeable.  I'll  give more
consideration  to the problems
of child development, on which
little  good  fiction  has  so  far

been  written  in  Nigeria,
drawing  heavily  on my own
experience  as  a  developing
child,  and  on  a  mother  and
teacher.  So  help  me  God.'
(259).

The  presentation  of  the
writer  picking  up  ideas  and
becoming  aware  of  new re-
sponsibilities  are  the  most
interesting  of the  book. But
even  they  are  pursued  in a
somewhat  dilettante  way so
that even the undertaking to
interview fellow participants
is  never  pursued rigorously.
All in all the book remains on
the  level  of  a  well-written
travelogue  to  be  read  with
pleasure,  and  with  admira-
tion  for  the  careful  way in
which  facts  and  experiences
have  been  shared.  One can
enjoy  the  asides,  the  notes
that  are jotted  down for  the
attention of those in Nigerian
universities  and  govern-
ments. One can be surprised
by figures and learn some his-
tory. There is a 'gentlemanly'
understanding that these fac-
tual  elements  will  never
amount  to anything  as sub-
stantial as a programme or as
intellectually  challenging as
a thesis.

While there is, despite the
decision  to  speak  through  a
female  persona,  nothing
earth shattering in Ike's new
book, there  should  be admi-
ration for a job well done, and
thanks for insights into life in
the  United  States  and  on a
Writers' Program.
•Gibbs is a professor  of  English at
the University  of the West of
England. Bristol.

Metaphors of Womanhood

Bose  Shaba

Yvonne Vera, UNDER THE TONGUE. Baobab
Boobs, Harare.  1996, 114pp.

The  River  will  become a  tongue.  Under  the  tongue  are
hidden  voices.  Under  the  tongue  is  a  healing  silence.  I
see the river. I see  Grandmother.

ISSUE NUMBER TWO*  1997

O says Zhizha the child narrator of this
story in her desperate song of lament
(and of hope . For her Grandmother rep-
•r
resents the ultimate embodiment of the
ironical realisation that it is the lot of
women to break out of the silence that society,
tradition  and family  imposes on them. In one
breadth she advocates silence as the antidote
for the 'heavy things' which cannot be remem-
bered without death becoming better than life
and  in  another  celebrates  that  power  of the
word in the breaking of silence and the place
of the  tongue in this  voicing. This is the con-
flict that this novel of despair and hope, of death
and life, experience and innocence treads and
unravels. And Zhizha never really resolves or
transcends this experience of oppositional jux-
taposition to the very end.

is 

Under the Tongue is a narrative that  often
dissolves into the subjective. The entire story
is realised as an extended prose poem, employ-
ing  a  style  where  the
narrative 
con-
structed  around  meta-
phors  and 
images
rather  than  a  concen-
tration  on events. The
dreamlike  quality  of
the  story  thus  derives
from  this  narrative
strategy:  fragmented,
disjointed  and  jagged.
There is no detailing of
a  coherent  story  but
briefly reconstructed, it
is  a  familiar  story  of
rape. Muroyiwa, a man
who carries a calabash
where his heart should
have  been,  rapes  his
daughter  Zhizha  and
Runyararo,  the  wife,
kills  her  husband  and
ends up in jail. Grand-
mother  with  her  own
history of pain and de-
spair locked deep in her
memory  and  silence
adds this one more sor-
row to the pile. Now liv-
ing with Grandmother,
Zhizha  no longer  need  fear  the  darkness  for
'Grandmother protects [her] with her weeping,
tells her of the many places, the many sorrows,
the many wounds that women endure.' Rape,
incest  and  social prejudice  have always been
presented in the literature of black people as
the lot of the black female.  Under the  Tongue
represents  a very private dimension in its at-
tempt  by  the  child  victim  to  recover  from
memory  what  happened  less  than  ten  years

G l n i t ra  Books  Supplement

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before. We are not given the social lives of these
people as they interact with outsiders. Rather,
there is a delineation  of  the core of the inner
family unit. Nevertheless this basic family unit
is exposed as a social unit which subjects  the
girl child to a life of rape and terror.  Grandfa-
ther never really features in this novel as a man
who abhors  what  his  son-in-law  has  done to
his granddaughter  rather  he remains the pa-
triarchal figure that he is to Grandmother. The
patriarchal  power he exercises over them can
be glimpsed at the point where he  proclaims
in  all  severity:  'She  killed  her  husband.' The
survival of the girl child and the woman there-
fore rests squarely in their own hands. Here,
this survival is made possible by a community
of women: Grandmother,  mother  and  daugh-
ter who work together in their struggle against
a  common lot and the condition of silence. And
grandmother's resilience and will to survive (as
shown in her song of  hope even in the face of
despair) is an indication of the resilience of this
community of women.

Central  to this  narrative  therefore  is  the
role of Grandmother who looms large. She is a
rallying point for Runyararo and Zhizha. She
is the  glue that  holds the  women  folk  of the
family  together  and  prevents  it from  disinte-
gration. The lives of these women may be full
of sorrow but they are very supportive of one
another.  It  is  here  that  their  strength  lies.
Grandmother  may  be  ambiguous  about  the
power of her own voice but she remains a pow-
erful figure, loving, caring and  understanding
to  her  daughter  and  granddaughter.  She  is
unequivocal in this love even when Runyararo
did what she had to do. And Runyararo? 'I will
not bury him but throw him away just like a
dead lizard'  she declares of her husband. These
are strong women in spite of tradition, in spite
of silence.  And Zhizha will defy both tradition
and silence to heal the wounds of all three of
them.

Under the Tongue  is a  melange  of styles
and realisation but its immediate literary pre-
cursors  are  the  African-American  and  Latin
American novelists. Specifically, there are ech-
oes of Toni Morrison's  novels most  especially
the very influential Beloved and Mario Vargas
Llosa's  Aunt  Julia  and  the  Scriptwriter.
Muroyiwa's calabash  which he carries where
his heart should have been recalls Morrison's
Paul D and the tobacco tin which he also car*
ries in the same spot. But while Paul D votes
for  life  in his  ultimate  rescue of Sethe  from
the horrors of life, Muroyiwa votes for death.
As Zhizha  says: 'His voice says  death  is also
life.' While these echoes are of images, those of
Vargas Llosa are of style and structure. In that
vastly imaginative novel, the story of Varguitas
and  his love affair  with Aunt Julia  is told in

Yvonne Vera

•  ISSUE NUMBBt TWO •  1397 •

the first person  narrative by Varguitas him-
self in the odd-numbered  episodes while the
scriptwriter's radio serials are realised in the
third person narrative voice in the even-num-
bered  episodes.  Vera's  narrative 
is
conceptualised  in  the same  manner:  Zhizha
tells of her pain and hurt and the story of her
maternal family in the odd-numbered episodes
while the even-numbered ones are devoted to
her  father  and  his own  family.  Towards  the
end  of that  novel there  is  a merging of both
stories  as father,  mother and daughter come
together in a fatal  union.

This novel is full  of promise, the promise
of breaking a silence  that  it never truly  ful-
fils. All we are  given  are the  poetics of pain
and yet more pain  but  no personal  histories
are delineated  to give flesh  and humanity to
these  pains.  What  went  wrong?  Why  did
Muroyiwa's calabash heart finally crack? The
war  had  not  come to  an  end so he wouldn't
know whether his brother Tachiveyi who dis-
appeared to join the war and who he was cer-
tain  was still  alive was  never going to come
back. After all  it was this certainty and wait-
ing for his brother that  gave meaning to his
own existence.  Or did Muroyiwa finally dis-
cover what  happened  to the butterflies  that

he sought in the mountains during a war? Did
he get tired of watching the perfect  symmetry
of mats that his wife Runyararo wove?

And  how well  has  this  novel  fulfilled  its
maxim: 'A word  does not  rot  unless it is car-
ried  in  the  mouth  for  too  long,  under  the
tongue?' In this tale of despair and hope, a tale
that aspires to be reconstructed  by the power
and efficacy of the word alone, the novel never
truly  meets  its  own  structure  as  the  final
realisation  of the  story  shows  us. The word
has  become  almost  rotten  so that  in  its sus-
pended release what finally comes out is frag-
mentary. But again this is to be expected if only
because of how grandmother sums up the sor-
rows that women endure: only the departed can
speak our sorrow and  survive. Only they can
walk on a path covered with such thorns, such
unwelcoming soil. Even more  fundamentally,
this is a novel that is realised after all through
rememory, and through metaphors and images.
One can only walk with Zhizha in piecing these
images together. So how does one recover the
missing chapter 24? (But are they really chap-
ters or just numbered episodes?) Or is this the
publisher's error?

•Shaba, a freelance  editor, is a doctoral candidate of
English at the University of Ibadan.

Antiphonal Anthologies Aderemi  Raji-Oyelade

Henry Louis Gates Jr., Nellie Y. Mcfeay Eds., THE NORTON ANTHOL-
OGY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE, W.W. Norton  & Co. New
York and  London,  1997, xxv 2665 pp.

Patricia  Liggins Hill Ed., CALL AND RESPONSE: THE RIVERSIDE AN-
THOLOGY OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERARY TRADITION,
Houghton Mifflin  Company, Boston and New York,  1998, xxxviii 2039 pp.

We  have attempted to reconstruct the African American literary heritage,

at the turn of the century, without pretending to completeness.

- Henry  Louis Gates Jr  and  Neille Y. Mckay.  1997

SEVERAL anthologies  have  appeared

after 
the  publication  of  V.F.
Calverton's An Anthology of American
Negro Literature (1929) to define  and
exemplify  the canon of African  American lit-
erature. But none can be said to be as exten-
sively inclusive, patently canonical and com-
pellingly discursive as The Norton Anthology
of African American Literature (1997) and Call
and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the
African  American  Literary Tradition  (1998).
Perhaps these two separate anthologies are au-

thoritatively  significant  because they are fin-
de-siecle collections of the most representative
of African American literary tradition spanning
over two hundred and fifty years. More impor-
tantly,  they  transcend  the  ordinary  generic
boundary of the  anthology as a calculated story
of inclusions, revisions and rehabilitations: The
Norton Anthology of African American Litera-
ture (here shortened as NA) and The Riverside
Anthology...  (or  RA) have  generated  a  new
structural sophistication in the navigation and
the reception of the expansive history and con-

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