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The Palm-Wine Drinkard
When Amos Tutuola's first novel, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, appeared in 1952, it aroused exceptional worldwide interest. Drawing on the West African (Nigeria) Yoruba oral folktale tradition, Tutuola described the odyssey of a devoted palm-wine drinker through a nightmare of fantastic adventure. Since then, The Palm-Wine Drinkard has been translated into more than 15 languages and has come to be regarded as a masterwork of one of Africa's most influential writers.
125 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1952
About the author
Amos Tutuola
37 books203 followersAmos Tutuola (20 June 1920 – 8 June 1997) was a Nigerian writer famous for his books based in part on Yoruba folk-tales.
Despite his short formal education, Tutuola wrote his novels in English. His writing's grammar often relies more on Yoruba orality than on standard English.
Despite his short formal education, Tutuola wrote his novels in English. His writing's grammar often relies more on Yoruba orality than on standard English.
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August 6, 2024
An epic quest brings us through the ‘bush’ across mythical lands full of nightmares and deadly kingdoms in Amos Tutuola’s The Palm-Wine Drinkard. Following the dangerous adventures of a sort of trickster god—the ‘ father of gods who could do anything in the world’—who drinks palm-wine ‘‘from morning till night and from night till morning’ and seeks to return his deceased and beloved tapster, The Palm-Wine Drinkard reads much like a collection of short stories drawing from African Yoruba folktales, threaded together as stages of the quest much like oral-tradition storytelling. We see the world as fearsome and fantastical, with horrific beasts and unthinkable violence that can strike at any moment, and through a look at the good and evils that can lurk inside anyone, it becomes a story on survival at all costs. The most beautiful man alive is reduced to a moving skull, there are many-eyed beasts that devour you whole, tyrant babies, Written in a unique style with unfamiliar grammar that was much lauded by poets such as Dylan Thomas, Tutuola dazzles with language (and some knockout chapter titles) that destabilizes our grip on reality and plunges the reader headlong into the hellish realms of monsters, mayhem and imperialism. A haunting novel yet, for all the destruction and struggle against the acceptance of death, The Palm-Wine Drinkard captures a spirit of survival showing that even when death is arbitrary and can come in large numbers the community of humanity will find ways to adapt and live on.
‘We did not care about death and we did not fear again.’
Published in 1952, The Palm-Wine Drinkard was the first African novel to be published in English outside Africa and drew both heavy praise and criticisms. Dylan Thomas was quick to applaud the novel in his review which called it a ‘grisly and bewitching story…nothing is too prodigious or too trivial to put down in this tall, devilish story.’ Yet Nigerian readers were concerned by the Western praise, worried it would embolden European racists to view them as drunks with absurd superstitions and noted that the use of language is not how people actually spoke. This has stood the test of time, however, and negative receptions calling Tutuola a good storyteller but lacking literary merit have been brushed aside to see him as a pioneer of form to tell traditional folktales in exciting ways. ‘"I wrote The Palm-Wine Drinkard for the people of the other countries to read the Yoruba folklores,’ Tutuola said, ‘my purpose of writing is to make other people to understand more about Yoruba people and in fact they have already understood more than ever before.’ It is, admittedly, a bit of a difficult novel that more jumps from tale to tale with the loose connection of simply being encounters on a multi-year journey than a straightforward narrative but it is also imaginative and wondrous when you sink into the groove of the storytelling.
It exists in a frightening realm where monsters are everywhere and death is around every corner. We see the dangers of traveling where any territory can be hostile: the “bush” and roads between cities are full of lurking menace and each city has its own set of rules and leaders that are often quite hostile to outsiders. One can be killed at any moment, but luckily for our narrator and his wife they have ‘sold our death’ and ‘lent our fear’—the magical realism elements are delightful in this short book—so they can proceed without worry of dying. Which is good because death is everywhere and one thing they must learn is to constantly adapt to fit the needs of each new place. Quite often we see entire villages destroyed and everyone killed, with the narrator realizing staying in the devastation is untenable and moving on. He must always be quick to adapt to the whims of vengeful rulers or thieves (or giant murderous babies) and his ability to shapeshift feels much like a metaphor for this. But when he turns into a bird don’t go down the Lord of the Rings discourse on why didn’t they just ride the giant eagles to Mordor, just sit back and enjoy the story.
Chinua Achebe, another Nigerian author, once described the novel as a commentary on Western consumerism. This crops up often in the story and we see some of the frightening territories functioning as criticisms of colonialism and capitalism. Most notably is the character Give and Take, who certainly takes far more than he gives. When hired to work the fields, Give and Take steals the townspeople's land, much to their annoyance. When the people build an army to defend their land, Give and Take kills everyone in the village and keeps the land. Which, yea, that's a pretty on-the-nose metaphor for colonialism.
Tutuola is able to work in the broad metaphors of folktales by also removing any specific era from the novel, making it feel a blend of past and present all at once. Cowrie shells are the primary currency and the novel mostly appears to be prior to much technological use, yet there are also references to various forms of paper currency and bombs and telephones get brief mentions. Such as in my favorite of the tales of a man who is said to be so beautiful ‘if bombers saw him in a town which was to be bombed, they would not throw bombs on his presence, and if they did throw it, the bomb itself would not explode.’ After running off with an important person’s daughter this man is reduced to a skull that hops around, its great fun. Oh also giant murderous babies. Don’t ever forget about the giant murderous babies. I SURE WON’T!
Overall, community seems to be a large theme in this narrative. While the epic journey is more or less all for nothing in a way that reminds me of how I (unpopular opinion) actually really enjoyed that aspect in The Last Jedi, we do see that the town is saved at the end and that community will always live on in some form. Even the dead have their own community in Dead Town, where there is a mixture of races living in what I guess is ghostly harmony which feels like a cool jab at racism in the land of the living. This is a tale of survival and ultimately we see that humans will survive in some form enough to live on. The Palm-Wine Drinkard is a bizarre, haunting and surreal (and darkly funny or am I just twisted?) short novel that threads elements of Yoruba folklore into an epic journey narrative. A bit cumbersome but rather linguistically awesome for all its oddities, I will certainly return to read more Tutuola.
3.5/5
‘We did not care about death and we did not fear again.’
Published in 1952, The Palm-Wine Drinkard was the first African novel to be published in English outside Africa and drew both heavy praise and criticisms. Dylan Thomas was quick to applaud the novel in his review which called it a ‘grisly and bewitching story…nothing is too prodigious or too trivial to put down in this tall, devilish story.’ Yet Nigerian readers were concerned by the Western praise, worried it would embolden European racists to view them as drunks with absurd superstitions and noted that the use of language is not how people actually spoke. This has stood the test of time, however, and negative receptions calling Tutuola a good storyteller but lacking literary merit have been brushed aside to see him as a pioneer of form to tell traditional folktales in exciting ways. ‘"I wrote The Palm-Wine Drinkard for the people of the other countries to read the Yoruba folklores,’ Tutuola said, ‘my purpose of writing is to make other people to understand more about Yoruba people and in fact they have already understood more than ever before.’ It is, admittedly, a bit of a difficult novel that more jumps from tale to tale with the loose connection of simply being encounters on a multi-year journey than a straightforward narrative but it is also imaginative and wondrous when you sink into the groove of the storytelling.
It exists in a frightening realm where monsters are everywhere and death is around every corner. We see the dangers of traveling where any territory can be hostile: the “bush” and roads between cities are full of lurking menace and each city has its own set of rules and leaders that are often quite hostile to outsiders. One can be killed at any moment, but luckily for our narrator and his wife they have ‘sold our death’ and ‘lent our fear’—the magical realism elements are delightful in this short book—so they can proceed without worry of dying. Which is good because death is everywhere and one thing they must learn is to constantly adapt to fit the needs of each new place. Quite often we see entire villages destroyed and everyone killed, with the narrator realizing staying in the devastation is untenable and moving on. He must always be quick to adapt to the whims of vengeful rulers or thieves (or giant murderous babies) and his ability to shapeshift feels much like a metaphor for this. But when he turns into a bird don’t go down the Lord of the Rings discourse on why didn’t they just ride the giant eagles to Mordor, just sit back and enjoy the story.
Chinua Achebe, another Nigerian author, once described the novel as a commentary on Western consumerism. This crops up often in the story and we see some of the frightening territories functioning as criticisms of colonialism and capitalism. Most notably is the character Give and Take, who certainly takes far more than he gives. When hired to work the fields, Give and Take steals the townspeople's land, much to their annoyance. When the people build an army to defend their land, Give and Take kills everyone in the village and keeps the land. Which, yea, that's a pretty on-the-nose metaphor for colonialism.
Tutuola is able to work in the broad metaphors of folktales by also removing any specific era from the novel, making it feel a blend of past and present all at once. Cowrie shells are the primary currency and the novel mostly appears to be prior to much technological use, yet there are also references to various forms of paper currency and bombs and telephones get brief mentions. Such as in my favorite of the tales of a man who is said to be so beautiful ‘if bombers saw him in a town which was to be bombed, they would not throw bombs on his presence, and if they did throw it, the bomb itself would not explode.’ After running off with an important person’s daughter this man is reduced to a skull that hops around, its great fun. Oh also giant murderous babies. Don’t ever forget about the giant murderous babies. I SURE WON’T!
Overall, community seems to be a large theme in this narrative. While the epic journey is more or less all for nothing in a way that reminds me of how I (unpopular opinion) actually really enjoyed that aspect in The Last Jedi, we do see that the town is saved at the end and that community will always live on in some form. Even the dead have their own community in Dead Town, where there is a mixture of races living in what I guess is ghostly harmony which feels like a cool jab at racism in the land of the living. This is a tale of survival and ultimately we see that humans will survive in some form enough to live on. The Palm-Wine Drinkard is a bizarre, haunting and surreal (and darkly funny or am I just twisted?) short novel that threads elements of Yoruba folklore into an epic journey narrative. A bit cumbersome but rather linguistically awesome for all its oddities, I will certainly return to read more Tutuola.
3.5/5
May 8, 2023
Now by that time and before we entered inside the white tree, we had ‘sold our death’ to somebody at the door for the sum of £70: I8:6d and ‘lent our fear’ to somebody at the door as well on interest of £3:I0:0d per month, so we did not care about death and we did not fear again.
I have been reading a few genre-defying books for the last few days, The Palm-Wine Drinkard is one of those books which redefine the genre by bringing in new features and characteristics to the genre, in a way branching off to create its genre with setting its own rule and enthralling its own club. The Palm-Wine Drinkard is so different and unique that you feel as if you stumble across a dead end, a sort of mental block where you don’t know what to write about it, for everything seems to soil it and its uniqueness may be lost in the process, so you have to choose your words and sentences with precision. How much I succeed in it, will depend upon how it would do against the test of time.
source
At the first glance, it looks as if the book hovers somewhere around the margins of fantasy and folklore, only after a careful study one may get to the root of it and find the actual realm to which the book belongs. Is it fantasy fiction or simply an African folklore or carefully mediated science fiction, that’s the question, perhaps not quintessential but an important one? We need to understand first these types of fiction at the fundamental level, generally, fantasy and science fiction are used interchangeably but that’s not what we are here for. Fantasy, as it clears from the name itself, has unbound potential, as it goes anywhere while science fiction takes an inventive attitude towards the world rather than a fanciful one. We know that science fiction can stretch the fabric of the time-space of the world we reside in, to outrageous limits but it never goes to the realm of fantasy because then it becomes out of the world. In other words, science fiction takes upon the events which are probable although may not be possible in the near future while fantasy takes upon the events which are improbable. So, now the question arises which category The Palm-Wine Drinkard falls into, well, we would try to solve the dilemma through this write-up.
The Palm-Wine Drinkard opens up in the days of pre-currency cowries wherein our lazy narrator does not have anything to do other than to drink palm-wine with his friends. His seemingly insatiable thirst for palm wine leads to the death of his palm-wine tapster, he has been robbed of the only purpose of his life as his friends also leave him alone. It leads him to embark upon an unusual journey of strange worlds full of many unusual creatures, the journey demands him to confront death and overcome various other dangers on the course.
The story is built upon the myth and legends of Yoruba which the author uses masterfully to construct prose epics that improvise on traditional themes found in Yoruba folktales. He goes on a weird journey to bring back his tapster from death, the world of Tutuola has a place too where all dead souls go, it is “Dead’s Town” which no dead can leave. On the journey, he meets various curious creatures which are alien to our world, some of those creatures are so weird that they are just skulls who can hire other parts of the body to look like a gentleman, the exploration of the absurd world of skulls provides him an ‘immortal’ wife who helps him a great deal during his sojourn. The relationship blesses him with a wonderful but unusual child who they have to get rid of, to save the people of the town.
source
On his grand procession, he meets creatures such as “Drum, Song and Dance” who could go on to fulfill the roles dictated by their names to divine levels. He comes into contact with the most beautiful creatures in the world of strange creatures in “Wraith-Island”, and with “Faithful Mother” through the “Faithful Hands” of a giant white tree. There are some of the cruel creatures as well who he has to negotiate on his grand journeys such as the creatures of “Unreturnable-Heaven’s Town” who are enemies of God and as cruel as anything can be or “Hungry-Creature” who has the hunger to engulf the entire universe. Some of them are the most powerful creatures in the world of creatures such as “The Invisible Pawn” or “Give and Take” while the name “Give and Take” here may represent the cruel reality of the capitalist world wherein what they take from you is humongous in comparison to what they give to you. Some of the creatures are like human beings, who are full of evil and good like us, such as “Red-Town” and “The Wise King With In The Wrong Town”. The narrator of the story makes his way through the unknown worlds of unusual creatures to finally reach the “Dead’s Town” to find his tapster, whether he would find his tapster there and if yes, whether he would be able to take him back and where does his great voyage take him? However, one thing is for sure that our lazy narrator gets transformed by having a dose of wisdom the hard way.
The author has been able to create a very believable universe of strange creatures by satirizing the folk stories of Yoruba tradition. The creatures epitomize the morality and emotions of humanity. We see that the author stretches here the limits of realism but also reins in the unlimited possibilities of fantasy. As we see in the book that the Drinkard and his wife sell their ‘death’ to someone to become immortal and ‘lent their fear’ to not fear. The book is full of such examples where we see the extension of realism with a tinge of satirical humor, as we see in ‘Dead’s Town’ that both white and black live together, reminding us of prevalent racism in our world. Similarly, the story of ‘Red-Town’ tells something about our own exploitation of indigenous people wherein the narrator's wife prophesizes truly that all the lives of natives would be lost and life of the non-natives would be saved. It is a strange world but still governed by the vagaries of our own world as we see that there is death and fear too but these could be traded like anything else, which make the existence there pushing its realm and making death a way to prolonged existence. It also presents a wonderful possibility in our future wherein we may be able to wear off these vagaries related to our existence like clothes.
The basis of these ‘out of the world’ worldly stories lies in the Yoruba tradition as it is believed there that human beings can travel back and forth between living and death through reincarnation. The ancestors reincarnate themselves through their progeny so becoming a parent is an essential part of their tradition. We see in the book that ‘Dead’ Town’ represents some sort of prolonged existence of creatures of the strange world. The bush and farms also have their origins in the Yoruba tradition as cities play an important role since people used to live mainly in the cities with having farms to cultivate nearby these cities and the bushes provide ways to move between cities and these farms, with connecting to the roads that act as passages to connect with different cities. It is also believed in Yoruba tradition that ‘Heaven’ and ‘Land’ play an important part to keep harmony in their world with ‘Heaven’ having superiority to ‘Land’, we see that ‘Heaven’ and ‘Land’ creatures work on the similar lines in the book of Tutuola.
The language plays an important role in the world of Tutuola since the stories are crafted based on the oral tradition of folklore so the whole book might look like extended folklore in search of syntax to naïve eyes as the language used here as a tool to create a tongue of own kind by the author to produce a comical and poetic effect, perhaps Nigerian English. He has invented an uncommon and usual language which can capture the sounds of his community, as Wole Soyinka said -a world that was too realistic to be liminal, too paranormal to be realistic, each segment intersecting with others according to its own laws- to impose a congruous existence on the imagination. Tutuola uses repetition to give the stories a taste of folklore as it feels as if someone is dictating these folk stories into your ears and they get itched deep into your picturesque memory for forever.
source
I am unable to say with authority if I have been able to do justice with this strange little piece of literature that surpasses so many accepted norms of the literary world that it remains tantalizing vibrating on the boundaries of those accepted norms or literature itself. However, I can say with conviction it is a truly original voice in world literature that is highly enjoyable with puns of humor and keeps you thinking about its possibilities, about its limitations which essentially accentuate its greatness, about its purpose, its motive in a titillating way. Tutuola cements his place in the literary forum with his first novel which could be said a moral commentary on Western consumerism, as a forerunner to the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ben Okri, and others in the narrative style which is popularly known as magical realism.
It would be a ‘fear’ of heart, but it would not be dangerous to the heart.
4/5
I have been reading a few genre-defying books for the last few days, The Palm-Wine Drinkard is one of those books which redefine the genre by bringing in new features and characteristics to the genre, in a way branching off to create its genre with setting its own rule and enthralling its own club. The Palm-Wine Drinkard is so different and unique that you feel as if you stumble across a dead end, a sort of mental block where you don’t know what to write about it, for everything seems to soil it and its uniqueness may be lost in the process, so you have to choose your words and sentences with precision. How much I succeed in it, will depend upon how it would do against the test of time.
source
At the first glance, it looks as if the book hovers somewhere around the margins of fantasy and folklore, only after a careful study one may get to the root of it and find the actual realm to which the book belongs. Is it fantasy fiction or simply an African folklore or carefully mediated science fiction, that’s the question, perhaps not quintessential but an important one? We need to understand first these types of fiction at the fundamental level, generally, fantasy and science fiction are used interchangeably but that’s not what we are here for. Fantasy, as it clears from the name itself, has unbound potential, as it goes anywhere while science fiction takes an inventive attitude towards the world rather than a fanciful one. We know that science fiction can stretch the fabric of the time-space of the world we reside in, to outrageous limits but it never goes to the realm of fantasy because then it becomes out of the world. In other words, science fiction takes upon the events which are probable although may not be possible in the near future while fantasy takes upon the events which are improbable. So, now the question arises which category The Palm-Wine Drinkard falls into, well, we would try to solve the dilemma through this write-up.
The Palm-Wine Drinkard opens up in the days of pre-currency cowries wherein our lazy narrator does not have anything to do other than to drink palm-wine with his friends. His seemingly insatiable thirst for palm wine leads to the death of his palm-wine tapster, he has been robbed of the only purpose of his life as his friends also leave him alone. It leads him to embark upon an unusual journey of strange worlds full of many unusual creatures, the journey demands him to confront death and overcome various other dangers on the course.
The story is built upon the myth and legends of Yoruba which the author uses masterfully to construct prose epics that improvise on traditional themes found in Yoruba folktales. He goes on a weird journey to bring back his tapster from death, the world of Tutuola has a place too where all dead souls go, it is “Dead’s Town” which no dead can leave. On the journey, he meets various curious creatures which are alien to our world, some of those creatures are so weird that they are just skulls who can hire other parts of the body to look like a gentleman, the exploration of the absurd world of skulls provides him an ‘immortal’ wife who helps him a great deal during his sojourn. The relationship blesses him with a wonderful but unusual child who they have to get rid of, to save the people of the town.
source
On his grand procession, he meets creatures such as “Drum, Song and Dance” who could go on to fulfill the roles dictated by their names to divine levels. He comes into contact with the most beautiful creatures in the world of strange creatures in “Wraith-Island”, and with “Faithful Mother” through the “Faithful Hands” of a giant white tree. There are some of the cruel creatures as well who he has to negotiate on his grand journeys such as the creatures of “Unreturnable-Heaven’s Town” who are enemies of God and as cruel as anything can be or “Hungry-Creature” who has the hunger to engulf the entire universe. Some of them are the most powerful creatures in the world of creatures such as “The Invisible Pawn” or “Give and Take” while the name “Give and Take” here may represent the cruel reality of the capitalist world wherein what they take from you is humongous in comparison to what they give to you. Some of the creatures are like human beings, who are full of evil and good like us, such as “Red-Town” and “The Wise King With In The Wrong Town”. The narrator of the story makes his way through the unknown worlds of unusual creatures to finally reach the “Dead’s Town” to find his tapster, whether he would find his tapster there and if yes, whether he would be able to take him back and where does his great voyage take him? However, one thing is for sure that our lazy narrator gets transformed by having a dose of wisdom the hard way.
The author has been able to create a very believable universe of strange creatures by satirizing the folk stories of Yoruba tradition. The creatures epitomize the morality and emotions of humanity. We see that the author stretches here the limits of realism but also reins in the unlimited possibilities of fantasy. As we see in the book that the Drinkard and his wife sell their ‘death’ to someone to become immortal and ‘lent their fear’ to not fear. The book is full of such examples where we see the extension of realism with a tinge of satirical humor, as we see in ‘Dead’s Town’ that both white and black live together, reminding us of prevalent racism in our world. Similarly, the story of ‘Red-Town’ tells something about our own exploitation of indigenous people wherein the narrator's wife prophesizes truly that all the lives of natives would be lost and life of the non-natives would be saved. It is a strange world but still governed by the vagaries of our own world as we see that there is death and fear too but these could be traded like anything else, which make the existence there pushing its realm and making death a way to prolonged existence. It also presents a wonderful possibility in our future wherein we may be able to wear off these vagaries related to our existence like clothes.
The basis of these ‘out of the world’ worldly stories lies in the Yoruba tradition as it is believed there that human beings can travel back and forth between living and death through reincarnation. The ancestors reincarnate themselves through their progeny so becoming a parent is an essential part of their tradition. We see in the book that ‘Dead’ Town’ represents some sort of prolonged existence of creatures of the strange world. The bush and farms also have their origins in the Yoruba tradition as cities play an important role since people used to live mainly in the cities with having farms to cultivate nearby these cities and the bushes provide ways to move between cities and these farms, with connecting to the roads that act as passages to connect with different cities. It is also believed in Yoruba tradition that ‘Heaven’ and ‘Land’ play an important part to keep harmony in their world with ‘Heaven’ having superiority to ‘Land’, we see that ‘Heaven’ and ‘Land’ creatures work on the similar lines in the book of Tutuola.
The language plays an important role in the world of Tutuola since the stories are crafted based on the oral tradition of folklore so the whole book might look like extended folklore in search of syntax to naïve eyes as the language used here as a tool to create a tongue of own kind by the author to produce a comical and poetic effect, perhaps Nigerian English. He has invented an uncommon and usual language which can capture the sounds of his community, as Wole Soyinka said -a world that was too realistic to be liminal, too paranormal to be realistic, each segment intersecting with others according to its own laws- to impose a congruous existence on the imagination. Tutuola uses repetition to give the stories a taste of folklore as it feels as if someone is dictating these folk stories into your ears and they get itched deep into your picturesque memory for forever.
source
I am unable to say with authority if I have been able to do justice with this strange little piece of literature that surpasses so many accepted norms of the literary world that it remains tantalizing vibrating on the boundaries of those accepted norms or literature itself. However, I can say with conviction it is a truly original voice in world literature that is highly enjoyable with puns of humor and keeps you thinking about its possibilities, about its limitations which essentially accentuate its greatness, about its purpose, its motive in a titillating way. Tutuola cements his place in the literary forum with his first novel which could be said a moral commentary on Western consumerism, as a forerunner to the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Ben Okri, and others in the narrative style which is popularly known as magical realism.
It would be a ‘fear’ of heart, but it would not be dangerous to the heart.
4/5
October 21, 2015
The tallest tall tale ever of what one champion boozer did to get a decent drink.
A psychedelic quest as mindbending as Yellow Submarine the film, but written fifteen years earlier and thousands of miles away.
A myth told (unusually) in the first-person by a trickster-god-slash-Herculean-hero, with a Taoist-fresh voice like a tarot Fool.
Whilst, thanks to one or two other people on Goodreads, I'd already figured that The Palm Wine Drinkard was a book to read because it's fun and interesting and strange - and not [just] in aid of wholemeal-sackcloth reasons like diversity quotas, with which much of the internet pushes/afflicts fiction from African countries - I didn't expect it to like it quite this much, or that I'd find it so funny.
Sense of humour is personal, yes, and no-one else has tagged this book as humour - but here it was one of those works during which one feel laughter bubbling under the surface most of the time [except during two or three brutal scenes], then every now and again an audible fit of the giggles erupts. Out of context, without the tone and build-up, it's probably not clear why that particular phrase did it.
- Some of the humour might run on the contradictions of conjunctions and other small words - like a child might write (many bizarre sequences of 'what happened' and less of how people thought and felt), or, yes, like a drunk person might say, or a transcript of conversation, where sense chenges slightly as you go along. e.g. because he was very clever and smart as he was only a Skull and he could jump a mile to the second
- Scenes that can be read as if they're satirising folktales because of the ridiculously convenient timing: for example someone changes into an animal and overhears a conversation at exactly the right point to hear what they needed. Not like they just missed it, or had to hang around for nine hours waiting. Dunno what the intention was, but it worked to read them as knowing: the naivety of the voice is perfect, yet it's all so well constructed.
- There is a lot of absurdity, but perhaps you have to be there, reading the whole book, to really laugh: These unknown creatures were doing everything incorrectly, because there we saw that if one of them wanted to climb a tree, he would climb the ladder first before leaning it against the tree.
Or, a man asks to borrow some money: after that I asked him where he was living, and he replied that he was inside a bush which nobody could trace.
- MJ's review lists some of the other great bizarre chapter titles, but my favourite was this (aided and abetted across decades by echoing Bridget Jones' famous pronoun-elisions): AFRAID OF TOUCHING TERRIBLE CREATURES IN BAG
This new edition has an excellent introduction by Wole Soykina that, to my mind, clears up points some earlier GR reviewers seem to have been scratching around for. Discussing the initial negative reception of the book, Soyinka mentions "dismissal and condescension" in Britain, and Nigerian concerns that it pandered to ideas of "uneducated colonials" - but in many ways, Dylan Thomas' enthusiasm for the book made other critics and writers take a second look (he considers it needed to be a Celt, not an Englishman, who'd get it, being more anti-establishment and with a closer connection to fantasy and myth).
What an imaginative rupture of spelling, to have turned a negative association into a thing of acceptance, if not exactly approval. Not ‘drunkard’ but – ‘drinkard’. Difficult to damn ‘drinkinness’ with the same moralistic fervour as drunkenness. The social opprobrium attached to the grammar-strict word is dissipated and the anti-hero is accepted as a first-rate raconteur. The title then sets the pattern for a narrative of weird encounters. Tutuola was not shut off from the ‘correct’ usage of the English language; he simply chose to invent his own tongue, festooned with uproarious images, turning it into a logical vehicle of the colonial neither-nor (or all-comer) environment. This was a polyglot proletariat... Tutuola intuitively realised that the more common ‘broken English’, or patois, would not suffice to capture the sounds of such a community – a world that was too realistic to be liminal, too paranormal to be realistic, each segment intersecting with others according to its own laws.
There are inevitably various bits and pieces in reviews characterising the book as quintessentially African, or primitivist or something. But [whilst knowing not much at all about Yoruba, or African cultures in general, and also seeing a universality in its folktaleness, reminiscent of myth-based stories from and about elsewhere] I'd say this is quintessentially African like Mark E. Smith's songs are quintessentially Northern English. That's definitely there, part of the spirit of the exercise, but the main thing is actually this surreal genius doing strange things with language and images and ideas, things that could look simple and crazy but are actually very clever indeed.
A psychedelic quest as mindbending as Yellow Submarine the film, but written fifteen years earlier and thousands of miles away.
A myth told (unusually) in the first-person by a trickster-god-slash-Herculean-hero, with a Taoist-fresh voice like a tarot Fool.
Whilst, thanks to one or two other people on Goodreads, I'd already figured that The Palm Wine Drinkard was a book to read because it's fun and interesting and strange - and not [just] in aid of wholemeal-sackcloth reasons like diversity quotas, with which much of the internet pushes/afflicts fiction from African countries - I didn't expect it to like it quite this much, or that I'd find it so funny.
Sense of humour is personal, yes, and no-one else has tagged this book as humour - but here it was one of those works during which one feel laughter bubbling under the surface most of the time [except during two or three brutal scenes], then every now and again an audible fit of the giggles erupts. Out of context, without the tone and build-up, it's probably not clear why that particular phrase did it.
- Some of the humour might run on the contradictions of conjunctions and other small words - like a child might write (many bizarre sequences of 'what happened' and less of how people thought and felt), or, yes, like a drunk person might say, or a transcript of conversation, where sense chenges slightly as you go along. e.g. because he was very clever and smart as he was only a Skull and he could jump a mile to the second
- Scenes that can be read as if they're satirising folktales because of the ridiculously convenient timing: for example someone changes into an animal and overhears a conversation at exactly the right point to hear what they needed. Not like they just missed it, or had to hang around for nine hours waiting. Dunno what the intention was, but it worked to read them as knowing: the naivety of the voice is perfect, yet it's all so well constructed.
- There is a lot of absurdity, but perhaps you have to be there, reading the whole book, to really laugh: These unknown creatures were doing everything incorrectly, because there we saw that if one of them wanted to climb a tree, he would climb the ladder first before leaning it against the tree.
Or, a man asks to borrow some money: after that I asked him where he was living, and he replied that he was inside a bush which nobody could trace.
- MJ's review lists some of the other great bizarre chapter titles, but my favourite was this (aided and abetted across decades by echoing Bridget Jones' famous pronoun-elisions): AFRAID OF TOUCHING TERRIBLE CREATURES IN BAG
This new edition has an excellent introduction by Wole Soykina that, to my mind, clears up points some earlier GR reviewers seem to have been scratching around for. Discussing the initial negative reception of the book, Soyinka mentions "dismissal and condescension" in Britain, and Nigerian concerns that it pandered to ideas of "uneducated colonials" - but in many ways, Dylan Thomas' enthusiasm for the book made other critics and writers take a second look (he considers it needed to be a Celt, not an Englishman, who'd get it, being more anti-establishment and with a closer connection to fantasy and myth).
What an imaginative rupture of spelling, to have turned a negative association into a thing of acceptance, if not exactly approval. Not ‘drunkard’ but – ‘drinkard’. Difficult to damn ‘drinkinness’ with the same moralistic fervour as drunkenness. The social opprobrium attached to the grammar-strict word is dissipated and the anti-hero is accepted as a first-rate raconteur. The title then sets the pattern for a narrative of weird encounters. Tutuola was not shut off from the ‘correct’ usage of the English language; he simply chose to invent his own tongue, festooned with uproarious images, turning it into a logical vehicle of the colonial neither-nor (or all-comer) environment. This was a polyglot proletariat... Tutuola intuitively realised that the more common ‘broken English’, or patois, would not suffice to capture the sounds of such a community – a world that was too realistic to be liminal, too paranormal to be realistic, each segment intersecting with others according to its own laws.
There are inevitably various bits and pieces in reviews characterising the book as quintessentially African, or primitivist or something. But [whilst knowing not much at all about Yoruba, or African cultures in general, and also seeing a universality in its folktaleness, reminiscent of myth-based stories from and about elsewhere] I'd say this is quintessentially African like Mark E. Smith's songs are quintessentially Northern English. That's definitely there, part of the spirit of the exercise, but the main thing is actually this surreal genius doing strange things with language and images and ideas, things that could look simple and crazy but are actually very clever indeed.
December 10, 2011
Dear Mr. Amos Tutuola,
When I was a small boy I was told the story of a perfect gentleman who went to a market and returned from it with a girl that followed him. As he went back home, he kept giving back the pieces of him that were borrowed, so that by the time he got to his home, he was only a skull. And the girl deceived by his beauty now only a slave.
Well, Mr. Tatuola, thank you very much for taking me through many indescribable adventures and many incomprehensible mysteries. I enjoyed them well, as a child should. But they reminded me of those days, when I was a small boy. Of the time I got scared when the lamp was taken away, and my fear disappeared when the light was restored. Of when I did not know how to be afraid when there was light, and when there were people around me. Now, I remember those days and I wonder why fear will be here beside me even when the sun shines, and people around me smile. Those days I was only worried about tomorrow if I hadn't talked my homework, because mother would scold me and my teacher would cane me. Mother won't ask me now whether I have done what I have to do, she'll ask me where is the result of what I have done. If I meet her by the road, - my childhood teacher, she'll be looking to see whether I have a suit and a tie, whether my smile says that I have seen and conquered. And my fear may be that she will only wave, and ask what art has done to me. Not what I have done to art.
I want to go back to one of those days, when laughter was laughter and not the superfluous hiding of what lies beneath. When stories genuinely scared or made me genuinely happy, whether the next day I had forgotten them or not. When I knew that tomorrow will come, and apart from its simple fears, it will come and go. When I knew there was a man up there, beyond the infinite skies, that said son, I hold the universe together, in perfection, and if you only believe this, everything will unfold as it should. I want a tiny bit of those days.
And to meet men like you -in person or in the pages of a book, -who will leave a legacy, who craft stories that will once in a while, remind us of what it was to be a child.
For looking beyond your limited self and leaving us this enduring story, may immortality always be your share.
Faithfully,
Reader in crisis, etc.
When I was a small boy I was told the story of a perfect gentleman who went to a market and returned from it with a girl that followed him. As he went back home, he kept giving back the pieces of him that were borrowed, so that by the time he got to his home, he was only a skull. And the girl deceived by his beauty now only a slave.
Well, Mr. Tatuola, thank you very much for taking me through many indescribable adventures and many incomprehensible mysteries. I enjoyed them well, as a child should. But they reminded me of those days, when I was a small boy. Of the time I got scared when the lamp was taken away, and my fear disappeared when the light was restored. Of when I did not know how to be afraid when there was light, and when there were people around me. Now, I remember those days and I wonder why fear will be here beside me even when the sun shines, and people around me smile. Those days I was only worried about tomorrow if I hadn't talked my homework, because mother would scold me and my teacher would cane me. Mother won't ask me now whether I have done what I have to do, she'll ask me where is the result of what I have done. If I meet her by the road, - my childhood teacher, she'll be looking to see whether I have a suit and a tie, whether my smile says that I have seen and conquered. And my fear may be that she will only wave, and ask what art has done to me. Not what I have done to art.
I want to go back to one of those days, when laughter was laughter and not the superfluous hiding of what lies beneath. When stories genuinely scared or made me genuinely happy, whether the next day I had forgotten them or not. When I knew that tomorrow will come, and apart from its simple fears, it will come and go. When I knew there was a man up there, beyond the infinite skies, that said son, I hold the universe together, in perfection, and if you only believe this, everything will unfold as it should. I want a tiny bit of those days.
And to meet men like you -in person or in the pages of a book, -who will leave a legacy, who craft stories that will once in a while, remind us of what it was to be a child.
For looking beyond your limited self and leaving us this enduring story, may immortality always be your share.
Faithfully,
Reader in crisis, etc.
October 30, 2014
Read this book on the basis that it is impossible to resist chapter titles such as ‘AN EGG FED THE WHOLE WORLD’ and ‘PAY WHAT YOU OWE ME AND VOMIT WHAT YOU ATE’, and for passages of tortured syntax such as: Then my wife asked him how could a man buy a pig in a bag? But the man replied that there was no need of testing the load, he said that once we put it on our head either it was heavier than what we could carry or not, anyhow we should carry it to the town. So we stood before that man and his load. But when I thought it over that if I put it on my head and could not carry it, then I should put it down at once, and if that man would force me not to put it down, I had a gun and cutlass here, I should shoot him immediately. (p92). Amos Tutuola wrote this novel aged 26 in his “primitive” English manner (a style that Dylan Thomas, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Raymond Queneau found remarkable), taking his content from Yoruba folk tales, which to modern readers might fall under the heading surrealism or magical realism or some such unhelpful label. This novella is a bewitching and torturous read (the style, if close-read, might drive one to madness) for fans of red-people, invisible-pawns, bush-ghosts, and elusive palm-wine tapsters.
October 20, 2017
Hold on to your tapster
So, there's this Nigerian dude who has nothing to do all day but drink palm wine. He goes over the top a bit, maybe to the tune of 225 kegs a day. That means he's got to have a man to climb the toddy palm and tap the juice, an expert who can supply him, because in this Time without History,, in the Realm of Mythology, there are no supermarkets or bottle shops. But, damn, one day the tapster falls out of a tree and is killed. This calls for action. Our hero decides to seek him out, no matter what it takes. The rest of this wonderful, crazy story covers the search for the tapster. Is he ever found? You'll have to read the book. All kinds of amazing, imaginative adventures ensue. It's a mixture of mythology, the Oz stories, African folktales and weird dreams told in a highly original English that reminded me of folk artists like Grandma Moses or Pirosmanishvili (Georgia). There are no other books like this except the other books of this author, Amos Tutuola. He was never going to win the Nobel Prize, OK, but if you want to read "something completely different", this is your book. I first read it back in 1966 and loved it. I recently read it again. The dude brings back a special egg. Why? What kind? Read the book and find out. If you turn out to be a palm-wine drinkard, just remember, get your tapster some kind of safety equipment. You'll save yourself a whole lot of trouble. My review may be a bit on the humorous side, but seriously, this is an amazing book well-worth inclusion in literature courses and in Your Life.
So, there's this Nigerian dude who has nothing to do all day but drink palm wine. He goes over the top a bit, maybe to the tune of 225 kegs a day. That means he's got to have a man to climb the toddy palm and tap the juice, an expert who can supply him, because in this Time without History,, in the Realm of Mythology, there are no supermarkets or bottle shops. But, damn, one day the tapster falls out of a tree and is killed. This calls for action. Our hero decides to seek him out, no matter what it takes. The rest of this wonderful, crazy story covers the search for the tapster. Is he ever found? You'll have to read the book. All kinds of amazing, imaginative adventures ensue. It's a mixture of mythology, the Oz stories, African folktales and weird dreams told in a highly original English that reminded me of folk artists like Grandma Moses or Pirosmanishvili (Georgia). There are no other books like this except the other books of this author, Amos Tutuola. He was never going to win the Nobel Prize, OK, but if you want to read "something completely different", this is your book. I first read it back in 1966 and loved it. I recently read it again. The dude brings back a special egg. Why? What kind? Read the book and find out. If you turn out to be a palm-wine drinkard, just remember, get your tapster some kind of safety equipment. You'll save yourself a whole lot of trouble. My review may be a bit on the humorous side, but seriously, this is an amazing book well-worth inclusion in literature courses and in Your Life.
June 16, 2022
if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
140718: this is read 3 times. this is the book that made his name. it has been translated but i do not know how: a lot of the pleasure is in the voice, the unique version of Nigerian english used, perhaps proving that you cannot fail to make poetry when you use english (beckett). i had read some Tutuola before this Pauper, Brawler, and Slanderer, i was not surprised, but all the invented and fantastic adventures are what could be translations of typical oral tales he had learned from his grandmother and others then written down...
i have now read more litcrit on Tutuola World Authors Series - Amos Tutuola Revisited, and this deepens my fascination, if only in aspects that might just entertain the reader, that give further sense of the 'bad grammar' contention (as litcrit sometimes notes t is free of language and common english ‘poetics’ but not so extreme as joyce) and examines his work, his use of common yoruba tales is not 'copying’ but how spoken english is rendered more in yoruba grammar, and this book can be seen as no less original than say western riffs on hellenic myths and later maybe modern insistence on using the 'oedipus complex'...
140718: this is read 3 times. this is the book that made his name. it has been translated but i do not know how: a lot of the pleasure is in the voice, the unique version of Nigerian english used, perhaps proving that you cannot fail to make poetry when you use english (beckett). i had read some Tutuola before this Pauper, Brawler, and Slanderer, i was not surprised, but all the invented and fantastic adventures are what could be translations of typical oral tales he had learned from his grandmother and others then written down...
i have now read more litcrit on Tutuola World Authors Series - Amos Tutuola Revisited, and this deepens my fascination, if only in aspects that might just entertain the reader, that give further sense of the 'bad grammar' contention (as litcrit sometimes notes t is free of language and common english ‘poetics’ but not so extreme as joyce) and examines his work, his use of common yoruba tales is not 'copying’ but how spoken english is rendered more in yoruba grammar, and this book can be seen as no less original than say western riffs on hellenic myths and later maybe modern insistence on using the 'oedipus complex'...
October 28, 2014
I need some Juju to help me review this!
April 4, 2018
So there's a scene where the evasive Death is being pursued, but he isn't at home, he's in the yam garden. I thought, Candide! There was hope but alas I don't like novels drenched in Folk Lore and the sinuous path never again crackled my imagination. Recommended for friends of The Storyteller or The Hakawati.
August 5, 2009
I read this book many years ago. Today, I picked the book off my shelves and re-read the first lines. It still makes the hair rise on the back of my neck.
I was a palm-wine drinkard since I was a boy of ten years of age. I had no other work more than to drink palm-wine in my life. - - - But when my father noticed that I could not do any work more than to drink, he engaged an expert palm-wine-tapster for me; he had no other work more than to tap palm-wine every day. So my father gave me a palm-tree farm which was nine miles square and it contained 560,000 palm-trees, and this palm-wine tapster was tapping one hundred and fifty kegs of palm-wine every morning, but before 2 o’clock p.m., I would have drunk it all; after that he would go and tap another 75 kegs.
The book tells of the sad demise of our hero’s palm-wine tapster and of the search to find him. In effect, this single narrative holds together a sequence of quite separate folk-stories. For several pages, one feels one is entering a rather genial world, full of the folksy stories of the kind one might read to children.
But then one finds that these are not children’s stories at all. Much more than those of the Brothers Grimm or of Hans-Christian Anderson, these stories are harsh and blood-curdling, almost too painful to read.
Their major themes are dismemberment, abduction and death. We meet Death himself, whose household furniture and firewood is made from human remains. We meet a “gentleman” of great beauty who has abducted a young woman. This man has hired his body-parts from traders, and when he returns these to their owners, he is reduced merely to being a skull who lives in a hole in the ground.
It is not, however, the single horrific images or single stories that are difficult to cope with, but rather the accumulation of these images, one piled upon another.
Later in life, Tutuola gained some small acceptance in the Nigerian literary establishment. However, for many years, he was disparaged by his fellow-writers who disliked his portrayal of Yoruba culture and his fluid, un-literary style. They perhaps too felt that, as the comedy of the first pages dissipates into horror, that this is a very strange book indeed.
I was a palm-wine drinkard since I was a boy of ten years of age. I had no other work more than to drink palm-wine in my life. - - - But when my father noticed that I could not do any work more than to drink, he engaged an expert palm-wine-tapster for me; he had no other work more than to tap palm-wine every day. So my father gave me a palm-tree farm which was nine miles square and it contained 560,000 palm-trees, and this palm-wine tapster was tapping one hundred and fifty kegs of palm-wine every morning, but before 2 o’clock p.m., I would have drunk it all; after that he would go and tap another 75 kegs.
The book tells of the sad demise of our hero’s palm-wine tapster and of the search to find him. In effect, this single narrative holds together a sequence of quite separate folk-stories. For several pages, one feels one is entering a rather genial world, full of the folksy stories of the kind one might read to children.
But then one finds that these are not children’s stories at all. Much more than those of the Brothers Grimm or of Hans-Christian Anderson, these stories are harsh and blood-curdling, almost too painful to read.
Their major themes are dismemberment, abduction and death. We meet Death himself, whose household furniture and firewood is made from human remains. We meet a “gentleman” of great beauty who has abducted a young woman. This man has hired his body-parts from traders, and when he returns these to their owners, he is reduced merely to being a skull who lives in a hole in the ground.
It is not, however, the single horrific images or single stories that are difficult to cope with, but rather the accumulation of these images, one piled upon another.
Later in life, Tutuola gained some small acceptance in the Nigerian literary establishment. However, for many years, he was disparaged by his fellow-writers who disliked his portrayal of Yoruba culture and his fluid, un-literary style. They perhaps too felt that, as the comedy of the first pages dissipates into horror, that this is a very strange book indeed.
January 29, 2022
This book gives way to uninhibited, untrapped unbelievable, unusual and unexplored imagination. Let go of every story convention and experience something truly special.
November 5, 2018
Published in 1952, Amos Tutuola's The Palm-Wine Drinkard is the first African novel to be published in English outside of Africa. It is subtitled "and His Dead Palm-Wine Tapster in the Dead's Town". Told from the perspective of the "Father of gods who could do anything in this world", it describes his journey for the quest of his dead tapster. For me, this is the kind of work that would have impressed Coleridge (in terms of my reading experience). He said, "The reader should be carried forward, not merely or chiefly by the mechanical impulse of curiosity, or by a restless desire to arrive at the final solution; but by the pleasurable activity of mind excited by the attractions of the journey itself." And the reader was surely carried forward and slithered her way through. Hence, the novel felt like a series of sudden touchdowns and disappearances of parables.
Anything can happen here, be it encountering some weird chapter titles like "Return the parts of body to the owners; or hired parts of the complete gentleman's body to be returned", "An egg fed the whole world", "Pay what you owe me and vomit what you ate", etc. or the incidents like leaving 'death' for the buyer. Some background research broadened my thoughts. The novel is based on Yoruba folktales. I wish I was competent enough to take in more from this work. The shortcomings of a reader are myriad.
Anything can happen here, be it encountering some weird chapter titles like "Return the parts of body to the owners; or hired parts of the complete gentleman's body to be returned", "An egg fed the whole world", "Pay what you owe me and vomit what you ate", etc. or the incidents like leaving 'death' for the buyer. Some background research broadened my thoughts. The novel is based on Yoruba folktales. I wish I was competent enough to take in more from this work. The shortcomings of a reader are myriad.
January 11, 2019
In a recent NY Times Book Review article, Nigerian writer Chigozie Obioma told a story about how when he was frequently ill as a child, his father would tell him wild stories. Puzzled as to why this stopped, he asked his father for an explanation, who explained that Chigozie was now old enough to read on his own, handing him The Palm-Wine Drinkard. It turns out his father had no imagination whatsoever and the stories were all from this book by Amos Tutuola.
The protagonist is a drunk, having started early at age 10. His father hires a tapster, who falls out of a tree and dies, at which point, the drunk decides to find him no matter what. The reader is then carried into the African bush on a psychedelic, magical mystery tour of numerous West African folk tales. Weird, compelling, gruesome, fantastic, alternating dark and light, magical realism.
The protagonist is a drunk, having started early at age 10. His father hires a tapster, who falls out of a tree and dies, at which point, the drunk decides to find him no matter what. The reader is then carried into the African bush on a psychedelic, magical mystery tour of numerous West African folk tales. Weird, compelling, gruesome, fantastic, alternating dark and light, magical realism.
June 26, 2010
In some times and places, madmen were viewed with a sort of wary deference. Were they simply insane, or touched by the hand of God? You couldn't be sure. That same sort of holy madness - chilling and funny by turns - infuses every page of this story. What part is myth and what part is novel? You can't really tell where one ends and the other begins. To pick up this book is to find yourself unexpectedly wrenched from the world and deposited into a dangerous wonderland that almost, but not quite, makes sense. I wish I'd known years ago how strange and great this book is. I already look forward to many re-readings.
April 15, 2017
a fantastic dream full of seen and unseen.
i'm sure i miss 90% of the Yoruba symbolism in the journey, but it felt delicious anyway.
recommended for anyone who knows that magic is real.
i'm sure i miss 90% of the Yoruba symbolism in the journey, but it felt delicious anyway.
recommended for anyone who knows that magic is real.
April 28, 2015
The Palm Wine Drinkard is a brilliant, absurd piece of literature. I adored it. I had never heard of Amos Tutuola (to my friend’s surprise) and had no real expectations and was subsequently terribly delighted!
All the Nigerian authors I have read thus far, Achebe, Adichie, Abani and Soyinka have all been wonderful. I have a great affinity for African literature and the Nigerians like their film making have found a unique way to capture their storytelling.
This is exactly what Tutuola is about. His style is one of a kind, his book reads like the narrator is sitting under a tree retelling a story that happened. Had he been one of my kinsman it would filled with “and then, and then, and then,” interspersed throughout the rather ridiculous tales.
The Palm Wine Drinkard (not drunkard) is about a man who just loves his palm wine and goes on a rather long journey in search of his former palm wine tapster.
The plot is quite ridiculous. It reminds me of an uncle of mine whose imagination knows no bounds. There is an element of truth in some of the personal stories he has told us over the years but just that, an element. The rest is pure fabrication and although you know it is far fetched you remain engrossed because it is highly entertaining.
Tutuola does not polish his language but writes in a style that is exceptionally unique and individual. Wikipedia says this was the first African book translated into English in 1951 and it reads like something that was directly translated. Done deliberately by the author, the language adds to the absurdity of the text but also the wonderful nature of African storytelling.
It is a delightfully short book that can be completed within a day. I’d say it would make a fun read for anyone keen on African stotytelling and folktales.
All the Nigerian authors I have read thus far, Achebe, Adichie, Abani and Soyinka have all been wonderful. I have a great affinity for African literature and the Nigerians like their film making have found a unique way to capture their storytelling.
This is exactly what Tutuola is about. His style is one of a kind, his book reads like the narrator is sitting under a tree retelling a story that happened. Had he been one of my kinsman it would filled with “and then, and then, and then,” interspersed throughout the rather ridiculous tales.
The Palm Wine Drinkard (not drunkard) is about a man who just loves his palm wine and goes on a rather long journey in search of his former palm wine tapster.
The plot is quite ridiculous. It reminds me of an uncle of mine whose imagination knows no bounds. There is an element of truth in some of the personal stories he has told us over the years but just that, an element. The rest is pure fabrication and although you know it is far fetched you remain engrossed because it is highly entertaining.
Tutuola does not polish his language but writes in a style that is exceptionally unique and individual. Wikipedia says this was the first African book translated into English in 1951 and it reads like something that was directly translated. Done deliberately by the author, the language adds to the absurdity of the text but also the wonderful nature of African storytelling.
It is a delightfully short book that can be completed within a day. I’d say it would make a fun read for anyone keen on African stotytelling and folktales.
February 15, 2012
I'm puzzled by the popularity of this novel. I own a small new and used book store and I cannot keep this book stocked. It simply won't linger on the shelf. I have people asking for it all the time. After reading it, I can't for the life of me figure out why.
For the first fifteen pages, I was agog at the odd use of language. I thought I had found an early predecessor to Gordon Lish and Gary Lutz. Not a father or grandfather. Maybe a queer uncle or family friend. But soon, I found myself frowning and sighing and "Oh, godding!" Not because of the strange English (in fact, that was the one saving grace of the novel) but because what I realized I was reading was a kind of a fable or folk tale that lacked, completely, any hint of subtext. I realized I was reading someone's dreams.
Have you ever had to sit through the telling of a dream? Dreams are not "adventures" and there is nothing "incredible" about them because you can do anything you want in a dream so nothing means anything. It's funny, maybe, for the first few seconds or half-minute. But then it's just deadening. Because dreams aren't stories. And the story of a dream, told in a Kerouac rat-at-tat-tat, without craft or craftiness, is just not worth listening to. Or reading. And when I think of it, if this book had been read to me, in short bursts, I might have appreciated it. Maybe. Probably not. I don't know.
For the first fifteen pages, I was agog at the odd use of language. I thought I had found an early predecessor to Gordon Lish and Gary Lutz. Not a father or grandfather. Maybe a queer uncle or family friend. But soon, I found myself frowning and sighing and "Oh, godding!" Not because of the strange English (in fact, that was the one saving grace of the novel) but because what I realized I was reading was a kind of a fable or folk tale that lacked, completely, any hint of subtext. I realized I was reading someone's dreams.
Have you ever had to sit through the telling of a dream? Dreams are not "adventures" and there is nothing "incredible" about them because you can do anything you want in a dream so nothing means anything. It's funny, maybe, for the first few seconds or half-minute. But then it's just deadening. Because dreams aren't stories. And the story of a dream, told in a Kerouac rat-at-tat-tat, without craft or craftiness, is just not worth listening to. Or reading. And when I think of it, if this book had been read to me, in short bursts, I might have appreciated it. Maybe. Probably not. I don't know.
February 10, 2017
I don't know of another writer like Tutuola. The creatures jump out of the woodwork like the good boogers they are: you know they took time to develop, but you weren't conscious of that and now it's as if grandma just fell in your lap, chewing on kibbles 'n' bits between watermelon seeds and strumming a cold pumpkin like a guitar----impressive. There is a logic if you care to think about it, but it's one from eons past. And the great thing is that the guy has nothing to prove, nothing to contrive, and no one to impress. There are no computers, no keys, no Western angst, nor Victorian falsities....what relationships? Just an eight-legged, fat, hairy, onion that draws in the dust, or somethin'. Take it or leave it, the quest continues; it's the primordial soup.
Read
October 27, 2020That was an experience. A sort of dreamlike ramble through a landscape of Nigerian folktales and mythology, told in a marvellously deadpan narrative voice. I read the whole thing with bewildered fascination and came out the other side feeling slightly woozy in the head.
April 27, 2023
This is the most unique book I've read in a really long time!
January 27, 2017
Interesting book with a fabulous, unique style that melds Yoruban folktales with contemporary life in a classic "there and back again plot structure" that revolves around drinking wine. The short tales themselves are hit-or-miss; Tutuola's protagonist suffers, as does Superman and the RAMAYANA's Rama, from a sort of plot immortality that means we read almost exclusively for descriptions. When they are good, as in the story of the Skull disguised as the complete gentleman (a skull borrows body parts from many others and becomes so attractive that the narrator cries in jealousy), I read happily; other times, when the situation revolved around some sort of sizable monster and the outcome wasn't in doubt, it was a bit of a drag.
Tutuola is remarkable with a parenthetical - "I stopped and dug a pit of his (Death's) size on the centre of that road, after that I spread the net which the old man gave me to bring him (Death) with on that pit..." - and seems to figure out some of his narrative problems as he goes along - the lead loses his magical abilities and becomes mortal toward the end, after which he is repeatedly tortured and shaved bald. His arrival in Dead Man's town toward the end of book is particularly wonderful. DRINKARD has some of the joy of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS or PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, with the ambition, though not the structure, of ARABIAN NIGHTS. Oddly enough, the best thing of all is the 3 page long postscript where the author lays out the details of his own life. It retains his wonderful use of English and mingles in a bitterness about his lot that is a strong contrast to his immortal lead - though we know while reading it that Tutuola had his own improbable, happy ending ahead.
Tutuola is remarkable with a parenthetical - "I stopped and dug a pit of his (Death's) size on the centre of that road, after that I spread the net which the old man gave me to bring him (Death) with on that pit..." - and seems to figure out some of his narrative problems as he goes along - the lead loses his magical abilities and becomes mortal toward the end, after which he is repeatedly tortured and shaved bald. His arrival in Dead Man's town toward the end of book is particularly wonderful. DRINKARD has some of the joy of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS or PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, with the ambition, though not the structure, of ARABIAN NIGHTS. Oddly enough, the best thing of all is the 3 page long postscript where the author lays out the details of his own life. It retains his wonderful use of English and mingles in a bitterness about his lot that is a strong contrast to his immortal lead - though we know while reading it that Tutuola had his own improbable, happy ending ahead.
August 9, 2020
Привіт, найдивніша книга року. Я просто. Не можу написати ревью. Почитаєте, зрозумієте чому.
January 2, 2019
I picked this gem for #ReadingAfrica week. It was so much fun! You may be used to African classics--which often means Igbo authored for English peakers--being sombre postcolonial tales aimed at oppressions new and old; bildungsromans set among a war torn country; or whatever other kind of plot that convinces a publisher to submit it for the Man Booker.
This ain't that kind of book! Praise the Lord, Amen. (There's nothing wrong with the first kind of books. I love those books. But it's wonderful to read a book hailed as a classic that falls outside of those parameters.)
Tutuola was a Yoruba author, with Christian parents, known for basing his stories on Yoruba folktales. This translated into a short novel which moved easily between the world of the living and dead, in which nature's various aspects were personified deities, and the hero relied on God, gods, juju, and other spirits or creatures to achieve his quest.
What was this noble quest? Our hero was a drinkard. He loved palm wine. A lot. His father hired the best palm wine tapper around to keep his son and his friends saturated in the precious elixir. Calamity descended when gravity got the best of our tapper--you climb a palm tree to "tap" for the wine--and he fell to his death. Disaster! No other tapper satisfied his particular thirst, his friends side eyed him when greeted in public, life no longer had meaning. What could he do?
He could go to Deads' Town where the recently deceased abide and convince his tapper to return to a life of reputable service. It was the only option. What followed were dangerous, thrilling, often terrifying quests. Tutuola had a talent for imagining horrific creatures with multiple eyes and horns that grew out of hands ; lurking beasts with heads the size of elephants and fanged beaks. He could never be sure whether the next living being met on the road was a friend or a hungry-hungry carnivore. Sometimes the hero was smart and at other times laughably stupid. But the entertainment lasted to the very last page.
I listened to the Tales podcast episode on Sinbad the Sailor and The Palm-Wine Drinkard had a similar feel. Yuri Herrera's Signs Preceding the End of the World was another title that came to mind for its protagonist who made journeyed to her mythos' underworld, granted for a more sombre reason.
I highly recommend it. The pidgin may trip you up at first but it was easy to get into the rhythm. The writing style evoked the image of an expert story teller in front of a group capturing the audience's attention, making one feel like a friend. 4.5 stars.
This ain't that kind of book! Praise the Lord, Amen. (There's nothing wrong with the first kind of books. I love those books. But it's wonderful to read a book hailed as a classic that falls outside of those parameters.)
Tutuola was a Yoruba author, with Christian parents, known for basing his stories on Yoruba folktales. This translated into a short novel which moved easily between the world of the living and dead, in which nature's various aspects were personified deities, and the hero relied on God, gods, juju, and other spirits or creatures to achieve his quest.
What was this noble quest? Our hero was a drinkard. He loved palm wine. A lot. His father hired the best palm wine tapper around to keep his son and his friends saturated in the precious elixir. Calamity descended when gravity got the best of our tapper--you climb a palm tree to "tap" for the wine--and he fell to his death. Disaster! No other tapper satisfied his particular thirst, his friends side eyed him when greeted in public, life no longer had meaning. What could he do?
He could go to Deads' Town where the recently deceased abide and convince his tapper to return to a life of reputable service. It was the only option. What followed were dangerous, thrilling, often terrifying quests. Tutuola had a talent for imagining horrific creatures with multiple eyes and horns that grew out of hands ; lurking beasts with heads the size of elephants and fanged beaks. He could never be sure whether the next living being met on the road was a friend or a hungry-hungry carnivore. Sometimes the hero was smart and at other times laughably stupid. But the entertainment lasted to the very last page.
I listened to the Tales podcast episode on Sinbad the Sailor and The Palm-Wine Drinkard had a similar feel. Yuri Herrera's Signs Preceding the End of the World was another title that came to mind for its protagonist who made journeyed to her mythos' underworld, granted for a more sombre reason.
I highly recommend it. The pidgin may trip you up at first but it was easy to get into the rhythm. The writing style evoked the image of an expert story teller in front of a group capturing the audience's attention, making one feel like a friend. 4.5 stars.
March 19, 2016
Voy a confesar que nunca había oído hablar del vino de palma hasta que leí el título del nuevo Ineludible de Navona Editorial: El bebedor de vino de palma de Amos Tutuola. ¿Quién no corre a la librería a comprar un libro de color verde pistacho que se titula así? ¿Quién?
Pues eso hice, queridos míos, correr a la librería y abrir el libro en el primer semáforo (aclaro que en mi pueblo hay tan pocos semáforos que podía haber evitado ese trayecto, pero eso significaba tener que esperar a llegar a casa para leer su primera página). Y ahí, en ese cruce, medio congelada, leí: “He sido un bebedor de vino de palma desde que tenía diez años. No he hecho otra cosa en mi vida que beber vino de palma. En aquellos tiempos el único dinero que conocíamos eran los caracoles, así que todo era muy barato y mi padre era el hombre más rico del pueblo.”
Servidora lee esto y corre a casa a devorar la historia, porque soy muy amiga de los principios literarios como dios manda. Me equivoqué. El bebedor de vino de palma no se devora, se saborea despacito, parándose a reflexionar al finalizar cada capítulo. Porque me he reído mucho con el mundo creado por Tututola, me he reído mucho pero también he pensado mucho. He meditado en todo eso que el autor nos quiere contar sin contarnos.
Con su forma absolutamente loca de narrar, que suerte que caigan en tus manos libros diferentes, Tutuola no nos deja indiferentes. Y es que él no escribe un libro, no. El autor nos está contando cuentos tradicionales de Nigeria, su tierra natal, derrochando imaginación a la hora de crear un escenario y unos personajes que sorprenden a cada momento al lector.
Reseña completa http://palabrasencadena.blogspot.com....
Pues eso hice, queridos míos, correr a la librería y abrir el libro en el primer semáforo (aclaro que en mi pueblo hay tan pocos semáforos que podía haber evitado ese trayecto, pero eso significaba tener que esperar a llegar a casa para leer su primera página). Y ahí, en ese cruce, medio congelada, leí: “He sido un bebedor de vino de palma desde que tenía diez años. No he hecho otra cosa en mi vida que beber vino de palma. En aquellos tiempos el único dinero que conocíamos eran los caracoles, así que todo era muy barato y mi padre era el hombre más rico del pueblo.”
Servidora lee esto y corre a casa a devorar la historia, porque soy muy amiga de los principios literarios como dios manda. Me equivoqué. El bebedor de vino de palma no se devora, se saborea despacito, parándose a reflexionar al finalizar cada capítulo. Porque me he reído mucho con el mundo creado por Tututola, me he reído mucho pero también he pensado mucho. He meditado en todo eso que el autor nos quiere contar sin contarnos.
Con su forma absolutamente loca de narrar, que suerte que caigan en tus manos libros diferentes, Tutuola no nos deja indiferentes. Y es que él no escribe un libro, no. El autor nos está contando cuentos tradicionales de Nigeria, su tierra natal, derrochando imaginación a la hora de crear un escenario y unos personajes que sorprenden a cada momento al lector.
Reseña completa http://palabrasencadena.blogspot.com....
December 9, 2010
here are some words that are capitalized in the book
COWRIES
BOTH WIFE AND HUSBAND IN THE HUNGRY-CREATURE'S STOMACH
"RETURN THE PARTS OF THE BODY TO THE OWNERS; OR HIRED PARTS OF THE COMPLETE GENTLEMAN'S BODY TO THE RETURNED"
AFRAID OF TOUCHING TERRIBLE CREATURES IN BAG
"THE LADY WAS NOT TO BE BLAMED FOR FOLLOWING THE SKULL AS A COMPLETE GENTLEMAN"
"THE INVESTIGATOR'S WONDERFUL WORK IN THE SKULL FAMILY'S HOUSE"
THE DESCRIPTION OF THE CURIOUS CREATURE:-
NONE OF THE DEADS TOO YOUNG TO ASSAULT. DEAD-BABIES ON THE ROAD-MARCH TO THE DEADS' TOWN
THREE GOOD CREATURES TOOK OVER OUR TROUBLE - THEY WERE:- DRUM, SONG, AND DANCE
WHO WILL TAKE THE MOUSE?
THE "WRAITH ISLAND"
PAY WHAT YOU OWE ME AND VOMIT WHAT YOU ATE
"THE WORK OF THE FAITHFUL-MOTHER IN THE WHITE TREE"
WE AND THE WISE KING IN THE WRONG TOWN WITH THE PRINCE KILLER
TO SEE THE MOUNTAIN-CREATURES WAS NOT DANGEROUS BUT TO DANCE WITH THEM WAS THE MOST DANGEROUS
I AND MY PALM-WINE TAPSTER IN THE DEAD'S TOWN
AN EGG FED THE WHOLE WORLD
COWRIES
BOTH WIFE AND HUSBAND IN THE HUNGRY-CREATURE'S STOMACH
"RETURN THE PARTS OF THE BODY TO THE OWNERS; OR HIRED PARTS OF THE COMPLETE GENTLEMAN'S BODY TO THE RETURNED"
AFRAID OF TOUCHING TERRIBLE CREATURES IN BAG
"THE LADY WAS NOT TO BE BLAMED FOR FOLLOWING THE SKULL AS A COMPLETE GENTLEMAN"
"THE INVESTIGATOR'S WONDERFUL WORK IN THE SKULL FAMILY'S HOUSE"
THE DESCRIPTION OF THE CURIOUS CREATURE:-
NONE OF THE DEADS TOO YOUNG TO ASSAULT. DEAD-BABIES ON THE ROAD-MARCH TO THE DEADS' TOWN
THREE GOOD CREATURES TOOK OVER OUR TROUBLE - THEY WERE:- DRUM, SONG, AND DANCE
WHO WILL TAKE THE MOUSE?
THE "WRAITH ISLAND"
PAY WHAT YOU OWE ME AND VOMIT WHAT YOU ATE
"THE WORK OF THE FAITHFUL-MOTHER IN THE WHITE TREE"
WE AND THE WISE KING IN THE WRONG TOWN WITH THE PRINCE KILLER
TO SEE THE MOUNTAIN-CREATURES WAS NOT DANGEROUS BUT TO DANCE WITH THEM WAS THE MOST DANGEROUS
I AND MY PALM-WINE TAPSTER IN THE DEAD'S TOWN
AN EGG FED THE WHOLE WORLD
March 25, 2015
A wonderful romp through incredible flights of imagination. Nothing is impossible; everything can happen. Told in the vernacular this story draws you in from the very first page and won't let you put it down. I read it in one sitting. Highly recommended; especially for lovers of traditional stories, fairy tales or just general craziness.
May 29, 2019
These are trickster stories, along the lines of the Chinese Monkey King tales, the Native American Coyote tales, and the African Anansi tales. The tales are extraordinary, and the idiosyncratic prose is entertaining. But 60 pages was enough for me. Another 60 pages would have been painful, and I didn’t want that to happen. Highly recommended.
October 24, 2011
A novel of breathtaking originality and scope that, despite the fact that it is only 120 pages (and therefore is really a novella) can be usefully compared to the tone, atmosphere, and thematics of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel. The language, a kind of Nigerian-Yoruban-English patois, is amazingly inventive and delicious, and it is unfortunate that Tutuolo's brilliance landed him in trouble for his presumed "primitiveness," although what seems really at stake is his unsparing exposure of Yoruban culture.
The novel begins by telling us of the prodigious appetite for palm wine of the main protagonist, and the decision of his father to give him land replete with palm trees (and therefore palm wine). The narrative then tells the tale of the tragic demise of the palm wine tapster of the hero, and the search to find him, which acquires the atmosphere of a Yoruban Odyssey. This single narrative of a search for the tapster holds together a sequence of folk tales that have diverse trajectories, like the episodes in the Odyssey. In the beginning, one has the sense of having entered a kindly fairytale world, filled with the kind of folklore one might read out loud to children, but this impression proves deceptive. The book tells of the sad demise of our hero’s palm-wine tapster and of the search to find him. In effect, this single narrative holds together a sequence of quite separate folk-stories. For several pages, one feels one is entering a rather genial world, full of the folksy stories of the kind one might read to children, but this impression soon vanishes. These stories are harsh, blood-thirsty, remorseless, and unforgiving, and they are almost, almost too gruesome and terrible to read.
The major thematics of death, kidnap, and dismemberment. We meet the figure of Death, whose household furniture and firewood are composed of human remains. We meet an extremely beautiful gentleman who has kidnapped a young woman. This man has "hired" his body-parts from merchants to trade in human bodies. When he returns his body parts to their owners, he becomes reduced to a skull that lives in a hole in the ground.
The single horrific images or episodes are not difficult to endure but, rather, their accumulation becomes oppressive; the more so as one suspects Tutuola of writing an exaggerated but recognizable cultural allegory. No wonder this book has aroused so much controversy! Tutuolo's depiction of horror is, in my estimate, unparalleled, and I am glad he has found an appreciative audience worldwide.
The novel begins by telling us of the prodigious appetite for palm wine of the main protagonist, and the decision of his father to give him land replete with palm trees (and therefore palm wine). The narrative then tells the tale of the tragic demise of the palm wine tapster of the hero, and the search to find him, which acquires the atmosphere of a Yoruban Odyssey. This single narrative of a search for the tapster holds together a sequence of folk tales that have diverse trajectories, like the episodes in the Odyssey. In the beginning, one has the sense of having entered a kindly fairytale world, filled with the kind of folklore one might read out loud to children, but this impression proves deceptive. The book tells of the sad demise of our hero’s palm-wine tapster and of the search to find him. In effect, this single narrative holds together a sequence of quite separate folk-stories. For several pages, one feels one is entering a rather genial world, full of the folksy stories of the kind one might read to children, but this impression soon vanishes. These stories are harsh, blood-thirsty, remorseless, and unforgiving, and they are almost, almost too gruesome and terrible to read.
The major thematics of death, kidnap, and dismemberment. We meet the figure of Death, whose household furniture and firewood are composed of human remains. We meet an extremely beautiful gentleman who has kidnapped a young woman. This man has "hired" his body-parts from merchants to trade in human bodies. When he returns his body parts to their owners, he becomes reduced to a skull that lives in a hole in the ground.
The single horrific images or episodes are not difficult to endure but, rather, their accumulation becomes oppressive; the more so as one suspects Tutuola of writing an exaggerated but recognizable cultural allegory. No wonder this book has aroused so much controversy! Tutuolo's depiction of horror is, in my estimate, unparalleled, and I am glad he has found an appreciative audience worldwide.
April 20, 2019
Kui meie raamatuklubi otsustas järgmiseks korraks lugeda Nigeeria kirjandust, selgus, et eesti keeles on ilmunud vaid 5 raamatut. Alustasin Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie raamatuga "Pool kollast päikest", aga kui nägin Lutsu raamatukogus Amos Tutuola "Palmiveinijoodikut" leti peal, siis ei suutnud vastu panna ja haarasin ka selle kaasa ning hakkasin ka rongis kohe lugema.
Mõnusalt kirjutatud raamat. :) Tõepoolest on selline tunne, et istud kuskil lõkke ääres ja vanamees jutustab oma lugusid. Lood on siis kokku pandud Nigeeria pärmuste põhjal. Minategelane, kelle nimi on Jumalate-isa-kes suudab-siinilmas-kõike-korda saata, on palmiveinijoodik, kes läheb otsima oma ootamatult surnud veinilaskjat, kes on nüüd Koolnute linnas. Tee peal juhtub minategelasega muidugi mitmesuguseid kummalisi juhtumisi, nt kohtub pääluude perega, aga need jätkuvad ka pärast Koolnute linnas käimist. Raamat on kirjutatud kõnekeelsena, mis tekitabki selle jutustamise efekti.
Soovitan neile, kes armastavad lugeda erinevate rahvaste pärimusi. Samuti sobib see raamat Nigeeria kirjandusega tutvumise alustamiseks.
Üks lugu ka:
Ent kui ma olin sääl linnas kolm ja pool aastat ära elanud, märkasin ma ükspäev, et mu naise vasaku käe pöial on üles paistetanud nagu poi. Ta ise ütles, et valu ta sellest ei tunne, aga ükspäev, kui naine minuga palmiistandusse kõndis, et aidata mul endale palmiveini villida, läks tema ülespaistetanud pöial juhtumisi palmiokka vastu ja suur oli mu üllatus, kui tema pöial säälsamas tükkideks rebenes ja säält poisslaps välja ilmus. Too aga kõneles sedamaid nii nagu olnuks ta kümne aasta vanune.
Tund pärast seda, kui ta pöidlast ilmale oli tulnud, oli ta kasbanud juba meetri pikkuseks ja tema hääl kõlas nõnda selgelt, nagu oleks keegi terashaamrit alasi vastu peksnud. (lk 25)
Mõnusalt kirjutatud raamat. :) Tõepoolest on selline tunne, et istud kuskil lõkke ääres ja vanamees jutustab oma lugusid. Lood on siis kokku pandud Nigeeria pärmuste põhjal. Minategelane, kelle nimi on Jumalate-isa-kes suudab-siinilmas-kõike-korda saata, on palmiveinijoodik, kes läheb otsima oma ootamatult surnud veinilaskjat, kes on nüüd Koolnute linnas. Tee peal juhtub minategelasega muidugi mitmesuguseid kummalisi juhtumisi, nt kohtub pääluude perega, aga need jätkuvad ka pärast Koolnute linnas käimist. Raamat on kirjutatud kõnekeelsena, mis tekitabki selle jutustamise efekti.
Soovitan neile, kes armastavad lugeda erinevate rahvaste pärimusi. Samuti sobib see raamat Nigeeria kirjandusega tutvumise alustamiseks.
Üks lugu ka:
Ent kui ma olin sääl linnas kolm ja pool aastat ära elanud, märkasin ma ükspäev, et mu naise vasaku käe pöial on üles paistetanud nagu poi. Ta ise ütles, et valu ta sellest ei tunne, aga ükspäev, kui naine minuga palmiistandusse kõndis, et aidata mul endale palmiveini villida, läks tema ülespaistetanud pöial juhtumisi palmiokka vastu ja suur oli mu üllatus, kui tema pöial säälsamas tükkideks rebenes ja säält poisslaps välja ilmus. Too aga kõneles sedamaid nii nagu olnuks ta kümne aasta vanune.
Tund pärast seda, kui ta pöidlast ilmale oli tulnud, oli ta kasbanud juba meetri pikkuseks ja tema hääl kõlas nõnda selgelt, nagu oleks keegi terashaamrit alasi vastu peksnud. (lk 25)
January 12, 2014
Marvelous story of unconventional, non-linear, Nigerian cosmological structure. Quite an adventure in language and atmosphere, and almost certainly unlike anything else you'll have read.
Just a note derived from my comment on "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts." If you want to start with Tutuola, start with "The Palm-Wine Drinkard." You can go on to MLitBoG (4/5 stars from me) if you dig it and want more. Both are darkly imaginative and funny sagas set in the West African idea of a chthonic "bush' where the real and spirit worlds intermingle, written in a broken English with elements of Nigerian Pidgin, but largely Tutuola's fantastic, poetical idiolect. For other books that might better suit the unadventurous Western lib arts educated dabbler and that work with the cosmological idea of a "bush of ghosts," read Helen Oyeyemi or Nnedi Okoroafor. You might "get" Tutuola and enjoy his writing, or you might hate it, just as with any unusual author. But I do want to address the egotistical numpties who say stupid things such as "people who like this book are only working out their colonialist guilt." Tutuola books are unique, iconic and magical, and no more primitive than, say, Ulysses. It's just prose, people. And it has the great advantage that you will discover very quickly whether or not you like it, and you can always put the book down and leave it for others to enjoy.
Just a note derived from my comment on "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts." If you want to start with Tutuola, start with "The Palm-Wine Drinkard." You can go on to MLitBoG (4/5 stars from me) if you dig it and want more. Both are darkly imaginative and funny sagas set in the West African idea of a chthonic "bush' where the real and spirit worlds intermingle, written in a broken English with elements of Nigerian Pidgin, but largely Tutuola's fantastic, poetical idiolect. For other books that might better suit the unadventurous Western lib arts educated dabbler and that work with the cosmological idea of a "bush of ghosts," read Helen Oyeyemi or Nnedi Okoroafor. You might "get" Tutuola and enjoy his writing, or you might hate it, just as with any unusual author. But I do want to address the egotistical numpties who say stupid things such as "people who like this book are only working out their colonialist guilt." Tutuola books are unique, iconic and magical, and no more primitive than, say, Ulysses. It's just prose, people. And it has the great advantage that you will discover very quickly whether or not you like it, and you can always put the book down and leave it for others to enjoy.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 433 reviews