ISSUE FIVE/2000 << GlenrJora Books Supplement 28 by different authors (in contrast to those by the same author) through their increasing as- cendancy get notably suspect as doing a dis- service to the literary canon because most of the new talents that have been published in anthologies do not become fully fledged art- ists with robust voices, vision and literary ca- reers. Their expressions are mainly scanty and incidental fly-by-nights existing 'obscurely' only on the pages of the anthologies. In view of this, it is worth reiterating that artistic production is still largely an individu- alistic pursuit. Robust and vibrant artistic in- dividuality, expressed in equally robust and vibrant artistic productiveness over a period of time, engenders a definable, easily recognisable character - call it the corpus of the artist - and thus establishes a lasting the- matic, stylistic and technical basis for con- sistent reference and discussion. Hopefully, the writers within Trembling Leaves, would grow far beyond their tenta- tiveness and their short-stories, and in time establish, each of them, their unique, vibrant voices, vision and styles, and thereby con- tribute a meaningful plus to the prestige of the heritage they are committed to uphold. Afadama is a businessman and literary critic. From your child, with love Lookman Sanusi, Toyin Adewale, Richard Mammah (eds), OPEBI THE HUNTER AND OTHER STORIES. Synergy Educational (with Mace Books), Lagos, 1999, 72pp. AN experimental literary offering. Nineteen stories produced by cer- i tain Nigerian primary school V pupils under the auspices of • Synergy Educational's story writing competition, initiates the Nigerian lit- erary landscape into a new tradition of chil- dren literature written by children them- selves. This example is an effective challenge to a hitherto dominant tradition of children stories written by adults from the perspec- tive and for the perspective of the child. Ex- amples of the stories abound: The Drummer Boyby Cyprian Ekwensi. ChikeAnd The River by Chinua Achebe. Without A Silverspoon by Eddie Iroh and so on. These boobs, by every intent and purpose, have been and will continue to be considered and accepted with an appropriate seriousness befitting the es- tablished literary canon. In fact, after an adult reading of Opebi The Hunter, the feeling that develops is that of a pleasant encounter of a curio: an aggre- gation of children's perceptive and cognitive potentialities clothed by a very raw inno- cence, naivety and promise. Seriousness of acceptance and consideration may not be on immediate response, aided by a nagging suspicion woven from such puzzling thoughts as: aren't these stories merely a re- hash of those heard from adults? Are they really original and imaginative? Can children really be storytellers with a confidence and deliberateness of thematic and technical in- tent comparable to the matured and experi- enced mind of the adult storytellers? Can these stories stand rigorous criticism? Yet the anthology is truly a surprising re- flection of the narrative imaginativeness and effort of very young people who, from the newest seeds which in the sprouting stage of this literary offering, will grow to become formidable materials for further literary growth and expansion. This is the convic- tion and vision of the editors and publishers and thus, the stories are presented as a seri- ous and ingenious affair, to which a reader's consideration is understandably important. The stories are mostly, and essentially, moralistic-didactic portraitures, animal and human stories operating within the mode and tradition of oral literature which in this instance are expressed and presented in the written medium. The resources of orality as regards development and presentation (the- matic and structural) are judiciously adhered to and utilised. The themes examined which are varied. are of the consequences of greed, arrogance, jealousy, larceny. Iasciviousness and of be- ing talkative: others are retribution or poetic justice in the face of inhuman treatment or evil and the glories of responsibility and hu- maneness. With the exception 'The Promise'. The Wicked Nurse'. 'The Stranger'. 'Opebi The Hunter' and 'Oliaku And Ego', all the other stories (exemplified by The Blessed Family') are very restricted in development. But what they Iacb in length is compensated for by a certain succinctness and ingenuity of the- matic unfolding. Joromi The Good Boy' ex- presses in a deeply touching manner the in- evitability and finality of death. Joromi is 'a • ISSUE FIVE/2000 • Glendora Books Supplement 29 very good boy... respected his elders and everyone liked him' (p.55). Yet. inspite of this, he is poisoned by his jealous friends at a party and this sets in motion the process of his death. With a moving song of anguish and helplessness by both mother and child, his mother 'laid out his bed and Joromi lay down and died'. The essential goodness of Joromi, his loss of father at a very tender age, as well as the pointless poisoning by friends accentuates the impact of his unde- served, unexpected tragic end. By contrast, the assured death of Obi in 'The Wicked Step- mother' seems a well deserved punishment for a mother who has inadvertently poi- soned her own son while in actuality she aims to eliminate by food poisoning the two children of her rival in marriage. Much re- sembling this mother is Okima in The Wicked Nurse' who loses her only child to death instigated by retribution. Her wicked- ness, by a pattern of not paying attention to patients, goes too far when she unknow- ingly refuses to attend to her own daughter who has been brought into hospital after being knocked down by a vehicle. 'Musa And The Big Fish' is a grisly, in- credible tale. A headstrong Musa. defying his father's warning, goes afishing and en- counters a mysterious fish that talks. On the request of the fish. Musa will kill, cut, fry and ultimately eat the fish. Because of this, his stomach swells so much that it fills a whole room until he dies. There is magical realism in this, which exists also in 'The Magic Needle'. A tailor's lazy wife uses a certain needle brought by an old man to sew. and after that, whatever she touches grow very big in size. The realism becomes more ab- surdly fanciful in 'The Naughty Boy' wherein a snake takes John away for three years. When he is eventually returned, he is com- pletely reformed of his naughtiness. Oliaku and Ego are carried off to safety by an Eagle from an angry mob in 'Oliaku and Ego'. Opebi converses with a talking human skull in Opebi The Hunter'. The Wife Who Could Not Cook' extends the limit of implausibility by an original, very farcical use of hyperbole. To prepare a simple meal of pounded yam and vegetable. Bisi. a very beautiful wife, goes through the ridicu- lous process of buying and jumbling together 'one dozen tubers of yam, three packets of sugar, two packets of salt, a basket of pep- per, a packet of tomatoes, two tins of milk, a tin of Bournvita and a big bunch of veg- etables' (p.21). The husband 'tasted the food and shouted"! 'Bisi ate it and fell sick! 'The Bird And The Golden Cage' expresse how the simplicity of a substantial choice or pos- session rates higher in a bird's perception vis-a-vis the menacing glamour of life offered in a prescribed and caged environment. The bird's life in its nest, accompanied by its chicks, in the forest is free, unfettered and meaningful. This contrasts fundamentally with the loneliness, circumscription and emptiness of life in a supposedly golden cage. What is in focus here is the vanity and ulti- mate pointlessness of a wholly materialistic and ostentatious mode of existence. The Promise' which is the most themati- cally and structurally comprehensive of the stories, is a tale about love which is genuine. deep and resilient. Love, by the travails of Amina and Tunde, is portrayed as patient, long-suffering, result-oriented and having an uncanny power to surmount obstacles. The love hinges on a promise of the two lovers to marry beyond their educational pursuits. But the realisation of this through the years is tortuous as both have to overcome, firstly, the sentimental restrictions of their classi- cally opposed backgrounds and circum- stances: because Tunde, the boy. is from a poor home, a Christian and a Yoruba, whereas Amina. the girl, is of a rich family, a Muslim and an Hausa. Secondly, they will have to overcome the sudden and unexpected at- tempt of Amina's father to marry her to the son of his friend in Kaduna. Divine interven- tion in the form of a motor accident thwarts this marital attempt because Amina is criti- cally injured and her brother loses his life. What is more, Amina's whereabouts is un- known to her lover and parents till years later. But what is to the advantage of the lovers' prospect is their education, liberality, hon- esty, generosity and an infinite dedication to each other's happiness. The story ends on a very happy note as their promise is eventu- ally realised. The Stranger' expounds a vision of an ideal society, where people show concern for one another, trust themselves and com- pletely abhor stealing. It is a fundamental contradiction of what is our problematic world today where evil reigns supreme and stealing and corruption are elevated to the ideals. The stranger is an image of a foreign and corruptive influence intruding into the community. But the deleterious impact of his thieving presence is quickly observed by the people and the authority and is effec- tively checked through a procedure unique to the society. Though scanty in many respects and de- serving of some improvement, it is a com- mendable effort that aims to sustain the pres- ence and tempo of literary activity among a very young generation. It reassures that the folk-tale of traditional Africa is still very much alive and well, even surprisingly among those << very young people who are born and bred within the city. The city is the veritable re- pository of urbane, very mundane cross-cul- tures, the astute purveyor of foreign influ- ences and imitations: it is the variegated cosmopolis that thoroughly and relentlessly reaches out to everyone through its plural- istic radios, televisions and newspapers. But inspite of all this, the young storytellers of Opefedemonstrate original cultural respon- siveness and continuity and a commitment to a better humanity. Yitah is of the University of Ghana, Legon. If you can talk you CCl.ll BY HELEN ATAWUBE YITAH Marion Molteno. IF YOU CAN WALK YOU CAN DANCE, Shola Books, London, 1998, 405pp. I F you can walk you can dance is Marion Molteno's third work of fiction. It is also the winning entry for the year 1999's Best Boob Category of the Commonwealth Writers' prize for the Africa region. Considering the fact that the selection process for this prize is one of the most rigorous in the world today, a boob Iibe this must have a lot to its credit. A gen- eral trend among writers of literature had been to tabe the English man's language, dislo- cate his syntax, recharge his words with new strength and. more importantly, new mean- ing. Molteno is no exception. The novel tabes its title from a Zimba- bwean saying, 'If you can walb, you can dance; if you can talb. you can sing'. It is a stunning piece of work, deeply imaginative, psychologically subtle and overwhelmingly musical. In fact, the world of the novel is a dance into discovery, of inner being, of the 'foreigner-element' in man. that part of him that is always craving to be recognised, to be bnown. The boob is not easily categorisable un- der any of the common labels for novels - thriller, adventure story, picaresque, epic, etc - because it is all of these and more. It osten- sibly tells the story of Jennie, a young white South African lady. Born in Bloemfontein into a wealthy family, Jennie is not amenable to circumscription of any bind. She is resigned to living in reaction against any external im- position, or in relief from it, a quality that sets her constantly moving across borders, across cultures, touching and being touched by the people she encounters. In this sense the novel is a complex of many stories - of Neil the musician, Michael the retarded child, the village women of Mbabane and the Nyiba Pla- teau. As we watch Jennie's transformation from the little girl whose boundaries, geographi- cal and otherwise, are limited (by herself) to her father's house and its garden, into the student-turned-human rights activist, and then the exile who is always both at home and a stranger wherever she goes, we also appreciate the compelling changes of time, place and circumstances which hurry her from one socio-politico-personal scene to another. For Jennie, music is both a metaphor and a reality. This duality is one fascinating qual- ity of the novel which has to be experienced to be appreciated. It successfully fuses the simple with the complex, the elliptical with the elaborate, strange with familiar Perhaps it is Jennie's (and Molteno's) way of coming to terms with the chaos of the modern world. Which is why the harmonising effect of mu- sic plays such an important role in the novel. The mbira, the string musical instrument that was an old Swazi man's parting gift, symbolises in the novel cords of together- ness, participation and above all. self-discov- ery. The resulting music, alone or with ac- companiment, is a release of synergy that is arresting, which is why it always catches a crowd. In such moments 'the whole universe is a dance' in which every round opens new vistas of knowledge, creative energy and a new set of motives which activates the next round. False steps are not noticed, or if they are. there is neither time nor need to dwell on them. Music is the reason for being, and everyone is in harmony. • ISSUE FIVE/2000 • Glendora Books Supplement 30