Ngugi has done those of us who might not not understand the rich African culture of oral story-telling a big favor by putting pen to paper and telling this wonderful story.
If only the wonderful fellow reviewers who contribute to this column understood how the old African …more grandpa and grandma used the rich traditional African art of oral story-telling to entertain and educate their great extended families - the sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, uncles and aunts, and even the dear old mothers and fathers, as they sat around the fire enjoying cobs of freshly roasted corn, embellished with the flavor of sound, tone, and acting of the wise old grandpa, they would not dare talk of Ngugi's novel as being too long.
The African gurus of oral story-telling used story telling to teach and to train, to entertain and to discuss, to criticize and to praise, through observation, the ritual of the behavior and life of the people in the community.
They would tell stories and entertain the family until the wee hours of the morning when all the young kids would have long fallen asleep, huddled in the arms of their moms and aunts , or snoring in grandma's cozy old blanket. By then the adults in the family would be listening out for the uncensored conclusion of the satires of how the villains and culprits were to be treated - the heroes garlanded and rewarded for their worthy service to society, while the villains were condemned from and cast out never to live in the community and neighborhood of their birth. The baddies were usually ostracized for life.
Ngugi maintains the momentum of his story from beginning to end through the rich African art of oral story-telling. His nearly 800 pages of suspense in the Wizard of the Crow are a lively scattering of that rich African art.
Ngugi manages to expose the corruption of contemporary Africa, the encroachment of African authoritarianism and dictatorship; the cruelty and brutality of the once loved by-everybody African leaders, and how western aid is abused to prop up the worst dictatorships to survive with their brutality in Africa. In fact it exhibits the irony of how the west appears not to see or notice the corruption, while the people watch hopelessly as their corrupt leaders are wined and dined by the western powers. For daring to speak against them, autocratic African leaders are known to remove their critics through disappearances and traffic accidents; the people are afraid to utter a word, they dare not criticize their leaders or they are dead.
Ngugi cleverly takes us on a journey in the company of a present day African dictator and his cronies, through the corruption of the fattened politician, and how it eventually tapers down to the ordinary businessperson and the jack and jill in the street. The singing of praises to the leadership by the majority, using women to ululate and not see the illicit behavior of their leaders; and the emulation of power and leadership by the everyday ordinary persons, (the povho).
We see the corruption through the pretense and irony of these leaders at forced attendance political rallies, the hired crowds, puppeteering to their leaders' tunes.
But then the worst is when the povho feel like their hands are tied when the western donors and their governments seem surprised when the truth comes out that it may actually be western aid which sustains the dictatorships, and in turn the corruption and brutality of the leadership.
This story is an expose of the whiter than white African dictators who betray the cause of the war against white colonialism; who betray the spirit of African nationalism, who will never agree to relinquish power once they have tasted the splendor of presidential palaces, the honey and the caviar, while their people's children's skins peel off through starvation and kwashiokor.
It tells of the kaleidoscope of African politics in the landscape of squalor and disease; it talks of a woman's sacrifice through her persevering love of her man; and of the commitment of the man as breadwinner and sustainer of his woman's love through pain and sweetness; it tells of the hatred of a man against his neighbor; the stench and the life of the tin shacks in which beautiful secretaries live, adjacent to the beauty and aroma of high-rise office buildings; the loud noises, the wild sounds; and the traditional soothsayer chants emanating from all corners of the African ghetto; and the quiet noises of the fights for power among the politicians; the resonating fights from the midnight deals between the politicians and the corrupt government officials and businessmen; then the quiet silence of the lovely morning sun as Africa emerges into another day of corruption. Ngugi brings the reader's nostrils to smell the stench of corruption through almost vivid and picturesque views of the uncontrollable smells emitted by the large African dictator - the exemplification of the disease of corruption.
Ngugi skillfully lays out the intertwined stories of contemporary African society through the story of the heroes intertwined with the escapades and condemnation of the villains of African folklore. (less)