The Famished Road in On Paths Unknown

Jul 15, 2018 Nandakishore Mridula rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls.

The linearity of narrative is a relatively recent innovation in storytelling, rather like perspective in painting: it is not integral to the art. Myths, our oldest examples of the narrative art, are not linear. They spread across time and space in all directions, with times past, present and future seamlessly intermingling, and the ‘real’ world cohabiting the ‘imaginary’ one with people travelling across the boundary e

The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls.

The linearity of narrative is a relatively recent innovation in storytelling, rather like perspective in painting: it is not integral to the art. Myths, our oldest examples of the narrative art, are not linear. They spread across time and space in all directions, with times past, present and future seamlessly intermingling, and the ‘real’ world cohabiting the ‘imaginary’ one with people travelling across the boundary effortlessly. I think this is more true of the so-called ‘primitive’ societies much more than the ‘civilised’ ones – Africa being the best example.

Ben Okri’s ‘The Famished Road’ has been called a novel written using the techniques of magical realism. I would say that if this magical realism, then it is magical realism on meth. This novel is Kafka meeting Marquez on a canvas prepared by Dali, with a bit of Stephen King added for seasoning. It is a roller-coaster ride into literary madness.

The story – what there is of it – is very simple: Azaro is a ‘spirit child’ from the realm of ethereal beings, who usually remain in the human world for only very short periods before ‘dying’ and returning. But for once, he decides to stay back, even though persuaded incessantly by his spirit companions. In 500 pages, Okri narrates his trials and tribulations as the son of impoverished parents in a piss-poor and corrupt African country, struggling to recover from years of colonial rapacity. As Azaro moves through the surrealist landscape of his intertwined worlds, he is witness to the epochal events gripping his nation.

The reader would be well-advised not to look for logic in this story – there is none. We have a positively cloying richness of metaphor, but to try to interpret it would be to get bogged down in technicalities and mired down in a verbal swamp. Just go with the flow: enjoy the colourful, exhilarating, disgusting and frightening images as they tumble past one’s vision. It’s a symphony orchestra of verbal images – open your inner ears to it.

It is not that there is absolutely no method in this madness: there is. Many metaphors are easily recognised. Azaro’s unnamed Dad and Mum, trying to make ends meet in a ruthlessly capitalist society. The landlord who keeps on increasing the rent of their shanty in the ghetto. The ‘Party of the Poor’ and ‘Party of the Rich’ and their thugs. The photographer who is a hero of the common man and villain of the authorities.

There are also events which are quintessentially African. Dad breaking his back in manual labour to make both ends meet: Mum eking out a precarious living by hawking wares in the bazaar: the two political parties vying for votes with golden promises: Madame Koto’s palm wine bar getting more and more prosperous as her connections with the ‘Party of the Rich’ improve: Dad, ditching his job to try and fulfil his dream of becoming a prize fighter... the demon of hunger constantly driving the common man to reach for the skies, as the tribal and the capitalist worlds collide.

However, what sets this novel apart from the humdrum is the richness of the mythical vein running through the story. Frightening spirits move across the boundary of the world, visible only to Azaro. There is the blind man with his unbearable accordion music, who “sees” with the eyes of children. Grotesquely deformed beggars, who seem to beings existing in both worlds, follow Dad as their leader. And to cap it all, Madame Koto, bloated with a permanent pregnancy and a swollen foot, strides across the narrative like a primal fertility goddess, a distorted Venus of Willendorf.

And then, there are the dreams and the stories, narrated by all and sundry...

***

About three decades back, I used to watch a lot of art movies through our local film society. One director who impressed me was Miklos Jansco from Hungary, whose films did not have a conventional narrative structure. There were very few cuts, and the camera moved fluidly through scenes loosely connected in a narrative structure. It was like watching a prose poem on screen.

Okri’s writing seemed to me the verbal equivalent of Jansco’s visual technique. To enjoy it, you need to put aside the critical part of your brain, and lose yourself in the narrative flow. If you are able to do that, then you will love this novel – otherwise, you will hate it. ...more

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Mar 21, 2015 Kamakana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: aa-africalit, multivolume-lit, fantasy, aaa-favoritefiction, comic-satire, aa-nigerialit, xlong-over-400, all-five-star, surrealism, magicalrealism

if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

240315: later addition: well the guardian newspaper says it is the 25th anniversary since publication- so what are you waiting for? read it!

review for third volume of 'the famished road' trilogy: this last of three novels by ben okri, the famished road series, is a great summation of themes introduced, elaborated, extended, from the other two. i read some reviewers who claim he merely includes more of the same, more fantastical, if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

240315: later addition: well the guardian newspaper says it is the 25th anniversary since publication- so what are you waiting for? read it!

review for third volume of 'the famished road' trilogy: this last of three novels by ben okri, the famished road series, is a great summation of themes introduced, elaborated, extended, from the other two. i read some reviewers who claim he merely includes more of the same, more fantastical, definitely african, images, thickening the stew but not creating new savour, but i suggest this is how to continue exploring this confusing world of a spirit child who would rather be free of human being, be free, be untouched by sorrows of living. there are too many images for me to describe them all, to suggest symbols, allegories, politics, ideology...

this is like the previous two volumes, built of short, poetic, vibrant scenes, and this is possibly one reason I liked it- spectacle- but there is an offered freedom when we do not identify with, but experience through, the central character, and this is one way into a the worlds described, the shifting realities, from the perspective of a child. who accepts everything, who does not separate dream from waking, or handicapped with modern sensibilities but instead in the openness of a child...

finally this is 'metaphysical' poetry- except the world of thought is not European, not English, not some centuries past but now, in Nigeria. i have often claimed i did not like poetry, going back to class at u, but to look at some works read this is obviously mistaken. in looking back, did really enjoy the beats, Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, but there are many names do not recall- except I did not like Spenser, Shakespeare, Donne, big historical names, known masterworks, though on the other, did enjoy Canterbury tales... need to read this again as it has been so long, this dislike. but i like this poetry, much as i like poetry-inflected prose such as amos tutuola, much as translation fascinates me with sense of literal versus thematically correct prose, such as the japanese work read. i am not bothered it does not resolve in a structure some of us- as 'western readers'- can understand, appreciate, delineate, for to me this is part of the magical aspect of azaro's world. the syncretic nigerian culture can best be felt, be seen, be heard, through the unending, furious, torrent of actions and characters, from madame koto the bar owner who becomes something more, to the dead carpenter no one will bury, to the blind old man, the beggar girl, to all the inhabitants of the bush and all the other worlds interwoven with this mundane reality...

this is told all in images, in obviously expressed emotional territory- madness, sadness, fury, fighting, running away- that it may seem to the characters have no 'internal' life, do not progress or change through these encounters, there is no logic, but to me this is simply because everything is open, vibrant, even should you need to enter the right spirit world, perform the right rituals, and be open to all the realities beyond what seems so real on a mundane level. and then there is some wisdom that comes apparent only in these magical states of reception, such as the politicians of the party of the rich, the politicians of the party of the poor, both magical, terrifying, promising only to eventually betray, such as the mythic fights his father gets in, establishes his fame, then how this is no help in realms of politics...

i never enjoyed art history as a class at u. now, i do not know how to stop seeing this world through that educated lens- now, as with my visual artist friends, i find art history everywhere, and i love it. perhaps this is how i feel about poetry, just because i did not like whatever it was we studied in such and such class. for this book is poetic narrative, this book is built of prose poetry, poetry given narrative descriptions, so easy to read, so defined by empty space as much as dialog, that i enjoyed this greatly...

there is of course some political content, chapter seven of book three, where we have the english governor general deliberately rewriting, deliberately destroying histories, to give you the idea nigeria's world did not begin until they arrived. well yes if you insist, there were people here before us europeans- but they were ahistorical, they were africans... but this and the other recounts of the g-g are really only giving this awareness to those of us not aware by now that this book, this series, is dedicated to righting wrongs of history by writing a nigerian world that precedes, and i suggest this is not 'merely' political, therefore should be in political histories and not novels, i believe this is metaphysical and essential and something we come to understand through all the varied, fantastic, comic and fearful, tale of this 'famished road'... ...more

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Aug 20, 2018 Meem Arafat Manab rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

পুরাটা মনোযোগ দিয়ে পড়ি নাই, পাতা উল্টায়ে গেছি। আড়াইশো পাতা পড়বার পর যদি মনে হয় প্রথম লাইনটাই ভালো ছিলো, বাকী আড়াইশো পাতাকে অথর্ব বলে স্বীকার করাই উত্তম। চাল নাই চুলা নাই, গল্পের কোনো হদিশ নাই। বাজে।

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