Opinion: Chinua Achebe, the ventriloquial Iroko

by Robert Obioha

Achebe: The ventriloquial Iroko

One lasting impression I have gathered after years of reading practically most of Chinua Achebe’s literary works and essays is that Africa’s most imagistic and flowery author was indeed a gifted ventriloquist.

I have said it before and I still want to say it that most of Achebe’s works are coded like the biblical language. They are capable of multiple meanings.

This is particularly true of his literary works, especially in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, which I consider to be his best works. I started reading some of Achebe’s works in secondary school but they did not make much impression on me except the discovery then that an author of a book can still be living. I had then thought that all authors are dead people.

Achebe’s works started making some positive impression on me while in the university where I developed love and interest in reading novels in Heinemann’s African Writers Series (AWS) of which Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is number one. My first curiousity upon seeing Achebe’s first novel was why did things fall apart? What and what made things to scatter? It was the same curiousity that attracted me to his other titles like Arrow of God,

No Longer at Ease and others. Over time and coupled with my study of English at degree level, I became more and more addicted to other novels in the AWS. In no time, I became attracted to novelists like Cyprian Ekwensi, Flora Nwapa, Chukwuemeka Ike, John Munonye, Elechi Amadi, Ayi Kwei Armah, Mongo Beti, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and others. Others on my reading list include Wole Soyinka, J.P. Clark, Christopher Okigbo, Gabriel Okara,

Leopold Sedar Senghor, David Diop, Okot p’Bitek and Dennis Brutus. I also read some works by English authors but they did not make much impression on me as I could not see myself in those books by Europeans. The environment of their works is different from mine hence my disinterestedness. Exceptions, however, include William Shakespeare, T.S. Elliot, Robert Frost, Thomas Hardy and Charles Dickens. Anybody reading Achebe’s works including his last one, There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra, should take into account Achebe’s ventriloquist nature. The reader should be aware that Achebe represents multiple viewpoints.

His works, especially the novels, should not be read like from one mindset. A work can also reveal the authorial view but not all views can be said to be that of the author. At times, authors hide under a character, always referred to as their foil or alter ego to express their views. Another point to note is the fact of Achebe’s imagistic and elegant language, which at times requires some extra-linguistic effort and situational recovery to comprehend. Understanding of Igbo proverbs, idioms and aphorisms are vital to decoding the layers of meanings in Achebe’s works.

Achebe like the big masquerade spoke in riddles. In Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God, Achebe assigned to each character a certain way of speaking, all capturing the grandeur of Igbo language in which proverbs became the palm-oil with which words are eaten. Achebe’s major characters speak the language of nobility in his two early novels. They spoke like the wise elders and ndichie of their community.

Ezeulu in Arrow of God doubted the white man’s mission yet he sent his son, Oduche, to be his eye and ear there, so that he will not miss out. Unlike Ezeulu, Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart was totally against white man’s intrusion and vehemently resisted it. In crafting these novels, Achebe revealed the conflicts and contradictions caused by the meeting of white men and the Igbos during colonialism and the impact of such intrusion in Igbo society. Ezeulu, Okonkwo and other characters portrayed never existed in history but they are a portrayal of what could have existed. It is an imaginative recreation of that reality.

The fact that people identify with those characters as real makes the works realist novels. That is why all his works come out with a big bang. The last one did not disappoint as it came with the biggest bang of all. Little did the readers know that the legendary bard was actually signing off and leaving the rest to those alive. While some critics approached the work with intellectual bent others approached it banally thereby distracting from its enduring essence. The work is a call for dialogue in order to correct past wrongs and forge a stronger and better country. Though Achebe’s works are full of fine stories, readers should not be carried away by the beauty of the stories.

His stories are signposts to understanding the plot and themes of his works. Another point to note in reading Achebe’s works is that they are a form of protest literature. In the first two novels, he protested the denigration of African past and pointed out that Africans had a past, they had culture, language, history, literature and religion. In No Longer at Ease and A Man of the People, Achebe bemoaned the post-colonial disillusionment that characterized most African countries that got their independence.

Readers should also understand the politics and ideology of Achebe’s works. He admitted that he was a political writer, and all writers are political anyway. Achebe’s works are guided by humanistic ideals, to make the society a better place for all hence his works are a critique of bad governments and policies beginning with imperialism to tyranny and despotism. Look at Achebe’s thesis on moderation of power in Anthills of the Savannah, “In the beginning Power rampaged through our world, naked.

So the Almighty, looking at his creation through the round undying eye of the Sun, saw and pondered and finally decided to send his daughter, Idemili, to bear witness to the moral nature of authority by wrapping around Power’s rude waist a loincloth of peace and modesty.” Are all our politicians praising Achebe to high heavens now conscious of the need to moderate the excesses of their powers? I do not think they understand what Achebe stood for. I totally agree with Chimamanda Adichie’s views that: “A reader expecting to find simple answers in Chinua Achebe’s works will be disappointed, because he is a writer who embraces honesty and ambiguity and who complicates every situation. His criticism of the effects of colonialism on the Igbo is implicit, but so is his interrogation of the internal structure of Igbo society”

According to her, when a character says, ‘The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart,’ the reader is aware that Achebe’s narrative is as much about the knife as it is about the vulnerabilities, the internal complexities, the cracks that already existed. Achebe was a lover of words and the arts.

He knew the uses that arts can be deployed to and he used all his writings to illuminate and at the same time mediate on human existence. He believed in a functional art and not arts-for-arts sake of the West. He believed in ancestor worship and the cult of the masquerade. He had transited to the realm of ancestors. He knew of Igbo belief in reincarnation and he said that in his next world, he would still belong to this part of the world, meaning Igbo.

There is no doubt that he will come back again as a great man, but he should be spared the troubles of his earlier coming. The master storyteller had gone but his works are there to bear witness of his forever presence. All those singing his praises since his demise should live by the ideals of Achebe’s humanistic works. Since Achebe had immortalized himself through his works and brave fights, let the rulers tie loincloth on the rude excesses of their powers and rule well. Goodnight Chinua Achebe! Adieu Nnukwu Mmonwu!

—————————————

Read full article in The Sun

 

Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

Comments (2)

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

cool good eh love2 cute confused notgood numb disgusting fail