Bolanle And The 3 (Actually, 2½) Wenches

I have finally finished reading a novel that I began two weeks ago, and which I rather deceptively put on my 'Bitchy's Been Reading' list last week (albeit no one noticed) even though I had barely read the first two chapters. The list below is supposed to imply that the titles piled prettily in that corner of my blog have been gorged on and dissected by yours truly. But in fact, this has often not been the case. Take 'The State of Africa' for example. Have I finished reading it? Nooope! And does it look likely that I will go back to it anytime this year? Nooope! Or 'Riding the Iron Rooster' - Did I get past the half-way mark? No I didn't. And am I ashamed to admit it? Nooope! It's not my fault if I get all excited at the prospect of diving into a new book, only to find after the first 10 pages that, well-written or brilliantly-researched though it may be, it does not set my pulse racing, I do not connect with its characters or contents, and I find myself having to stifle a groan whenever my fingers reach for its rectangular form, despite my desperate pleas for them not to. (nota bene, my fingers appear to be the only bones in my body capable of acting on a guilty feeling)

Moving on swiftly from the revelation that I am just a big, fat phoney, I want to talk about 'Seed' - currently Item No. 2 on my list.

Aeons ago, Yukay, who I both admire and envy (my throat is the body part for feelings of jealousy), blogged about Lola Shoneyin. He didn't dedicate an entire post to her (though he has never dedicated an entire post to one singular subject), and it was only a very simple statement like "... and word on the street is that phenomenal poet Lola Shoneyin's debut novel is on its way", but there was such enthusiasm in that statement that my curiousity (think twitchy knees) was aroused. And so I started googling. (yes I know I have a problem. Please let's not lose focus?)

Anyway, on Lola Shoneyin Dot Com, I read as much as I could read on Yukay's favourite poet, and even read an excerpt from 'Seed' I think. But then I found that I was forced to leave it at that, as no dates for publication or anything of the sort were forthcoming.

Fast forward about three months, to two weeks ago, when I was sat in the agency in the midst of shitty task number three hundred and thirteen. Rooting around in their database, I stumbled upon an electronic folder marked 'SHONEYIN'. I thought I was seeing things, so I opened the folder. And then I became giddy with excitement. I became more than giddy - I was near on epileptic! I couldn't control myself! I completely forgot for several minutes that Dildo the dog was sprawled mere seconds away from me. I opened the file on impulse, read the first 3 paragraphs, and then shut the window guiltily when it suddenly dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, interns were not supposed to feast on precious, unpublished, uncopyrighted material without authorisation?

I looked around the small office, like a kid about to dive sneakily into someone else's cookie jar, and thought...

Bloody hell I want to read this thing! I want to read it now!

But what if they say NO?

But what if they say YES?

But what if they say NO and then I go ahead and then they catch me and fire me and take out adverts warning all potential future employers in the teeny tiny publishing world in Britain, the United States and beyond, to stay away from a freak of a girl called....

To cut the story (which is becoming so bloody long, I do apologise, even I am getting tired), I asked if I could read 'Seed'. They said YES and were delighted that an intern would show such active interest in one of their authors. Why? Because they are truly lovely lovely people and not the ogres I may or may not have made them out to be whilst I was working for them last week - I tend to take a lot of liberties with my story-telling, but hey it makes for good reading dunn'it?

They even let me print out a copy so that I wouldn't have to strain for hours at the tiny computer screen. And two weeks after that fateful day, I am finally able to say, that 'Seed' is just brilliant. Absobloodylutely brilliant. It is so quick, and so snappy, and so spunky, and so full of energy, that everyone and everything in it is so fantastically alive. I felt like I was watching the scenes in High Definition - not that I have yet born witness to this new wave of technology, but you know what I mean. It was everything I have imagined the High Definition experience will be, and more.

I have a tendency to give too much away when I talk about a novel like this, and so I don't want to delve too deep. But Lola Shoneyin is just so subtle and so crafty and so delightfully wicked! I love her! She has taken a scenario right out of three quarters of the Nollywood movies sitting on shop shelves in Awolowo Road and being peddled on the street in Kilburn by dodgy Chinese ladies, and has turned it into a work of sheer brilliance. Characters who, if moulded by anyone else would be so placid, so bland, so lacking in depth, are so cleverly nuanced (I said 'nuance' when talking about McEwan didn't I?) The evil older wives (who I have termed 'The Wenches' in my title) could so easily have been blacker than night, without the slightest redeeming moment or feature. But slowly and subtly, Shoneyin peels the layers off each of them, even the evil-est of them, until you are left going "HA! Good for you! But oh! How terribly unfortunate. Pele!" Even the hideous husband, whose ailing digestive system is described in the most repulsive yet laugh out loud gobsmackingly hilarious way, had a moment of sheer frailty and utter despondency towards the end, so frail and so tragic, that I felt moved to weep for him. Obviously I didn't weep, because I still thought of him as a bumbling idiot, but Shoneyin made me want to weep, even if only for a second, and that was what was so bloody fantastic about her novel.

Another thing I loved about 'Seed' was the grand, poetic dialogue that ran through the entire novel, between characters who Shoneyin tells us unequivocally from the start, are all illiterates. It wasn't until I begun to read 80% of the novel in one straight sitting yesterday afternoon, that I realised that these people, who failed to detect the hilarious sarcasm directed at them by other 'educated' individuals, were speaking to each other in Yoruba. The wives (all except for Bolanle 'the graduate') insisted on addressing their husband as "My Lord". In scenes between the 3 wenches and their own mothers or relatives, their speech was infused with such drama, with such rich imagery and structure that they could have been characters in a Yoruba parody of Shakespeare's Macbeth, or even The Bible!

Just look at this...

" 'Keep your mouth shut Iya Simisola! It is a sin to speak evil of those who are led by the Spirit!' Iya Ade warned.

'You dare tell me to shut my mouth?' Iya Funmi took a deep breath and stood up. She turned her entire body round to gaze down at Iya Ade. 'You worm. From what mound did you crawl? If not for the mighty rains, would the pigeon and the turkey find themselves shuffling for shelter beneath the same awning? You talk about sin? Did they not teach you that bearing false witness is a sin in your church? Or does the Bible you brandish like a hatchet not say that?' "

I love love loved it! And I'm sure you will too when you get to read it in... Oh I don't know how many months' time. Teehee! I am so chuffed that I got to read it this early, and so excited too! Nigerian literature is truly blazing ahead at break-neck speed. Helon Habila got it soooo wrong when he said this is "the year of the Nigerian writer". This is the decade, no, the century of the Nigerian writer. Our people are taking over oh! Xxxx