Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma

University of Oklahoma

An Introduction to the African Novel. A Critical Study of Twelve Books by Chinua Achebe,
James Ngugi, Camara Laye, Elechi Amadi, Ayi Kwei Armah, Mongo Beti, and Gabriel Okara
by Eustace Palmer
Review by: Norman R. Shapiro
Books Abroad, Vol. 47, No. 1 (Winter, 1973), pp. 213-214
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40127022 .
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 AFRICA: GENERAL AREA 213
African literature.In this unoriginalpercep-
Soyinka,Armah) and analyzesin depth one
tion there may well be some substancebut, or two representative worksby each,revealing
true or false, it is odd that it should precede
the main characteristics of African fiction in
sevenessaysof which six appearto have been content and technique. Larson argues per-
written by expatriatecritics- or, equally in-
suasivelythat the readermust not approach
terestingly, by African scholars adopting the African novel with preconceptionsfrom
noms-de-plutnelike "Lindfors,""Edwards" Westernfictionbut must try to understandit
and "Killam."(By contrast,seven contribu- on its own terms. Too often, non-African
tors out of eleven in the currentJournalof criticshave been misled by estheticethnocen-
CommonwealthLiterature,edited in Leeds, tricityinto faultingAfricanwriting for being
appearto come from the Third World.) As differentfrom traditionalWesternliterature.
it now stands,therefore,ALT is too full of Larsontries to show why, how and to what
contradictions:an expensiveforum for non- extent it is different.The answers to these
Africancriticswhose sales in Africamust in-questions help reveal the differencesin cul-
evitablybe depressinglysmall. tures.Justas the white protagonistof Camara
Of the contributorshere assembled,GarethLaye's Le regard du Roi had to strip away
Griffiths- no Ibo he- writes so lucidly andhis assumptionsof superiority,so the Western
helpfully on the role of the Ibo proverbin readershould not be put off by the strange-
the novels of Chinua Achebethat the reader ness (to him) of some African novels but
wonders how ALT's editor, Eldred Jones, shouldsee what actuallyhappensin them.
would adjudicatebetweenGriffiths'svaluable Larson'scontributionis a close reading of
criticalpracticeand the theoriesof Emenyonu,
some archetypalworks {Things Fall Apart)
and of DerekElders,who claimsin an Achebe The Palm WineDrin\ard\ WeepNot, Child;
review that "works in their literary infancy
Le regard du roi), concentratingon the ex-
do not lend themselvesto the habitualcritical
ture of the prose, structuralpatterns,tech-
proceduresof more developedliterarysitua- niquesof narrativeand characterization, Afri-
tions." (Is this a literaryversionof the Ban-
can conceptsof time and space,and rhetorical
tustansof the South?) So manymajorcritical devices.A chapteron Onitshamarketfiction
issues of this kind are raised here withoutshows the values of popularculture and the
being developedthat there is an urgent needway in which somehave becomeincorporated
for a firm-footededitor to guide us throughinto the work of more recognized writers
them without trying to impose any kind of such as CyprianEkwensi.Larsonanalyzesthe
gray editorial concensus. All in all, both themes of African fiction accordingto five
critically and sociologically,ALT is a dis-main categories:initial exposureto the West,
tinctly odd, unfocused book for which it adaptationto Western education, urbaniza-
would be rash to predicta ripe old age: nowtion, politics, and individual life style and
in its youth, it has a terse, unsatisfactory
estrangement.As the second generationgets
editorial,an incompleteindex and no bibli- underway,Larsonfinds that despite militant
ography. argumentsthat Africanfictionmust give pro-
Robert/. Green
test and relevancepriorityover art, novelists
Southampton,Englandare in fact becomingmore sophisticatedand
universal.An extensivebibliographylists most
Africanfiction to date, annotatedby country
CharlesR. Larson.The Emergenceof African and content.
Fiction.Bloomington,Ind. IndianaUniversity RobertE. Morsberger
Press.Rev. ed., 1972.xi + 305 pages.$3.50. California State Polytechnic University

Except for a few isolatedprecursors,the

African novel is only a generationold.
During that time, it has reflectedchangesin
Africaitself from colonialstatusthroughpost-
independencecrises, from village to increas-
ingly urban and Westernizedculture, from
communal roots to alienated individuality.
Charles Larson does not attempt to survey
the hundredsof West Africannovels.Instead,
he focuseson a handfulof key artists(Achebe,
Tutuola, Ngugi, Abrahams, Laye, Peters,
EustacePalmer.An Introductionto the Afri-
can Novel. A CriticalStudyof Twelve Boo\s
by Chinua Achebe, James Ngugi, Camara
Laye,Elechi Amadi, Ayi Kwei Armah,Mon-
go Beti, and Gabrielo\ara. New York. Afri-
cana. 1972.xv + 176 pages.$8.
The title of Eustace Palmer'sbook im-
pliesa doublepromise,only half of which
is reallykept. The volumeis, indeed,an intro-

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
214 BOOKS ABROAD
duction;and in many respectsa valuableone.
But its claim to being an introductionto the
African novel is a trifle pretentious.The au-
thor seemsto sensethis criticismby justifying
in his introductioncertain"significantomis-
sions":CyprianEkwensi, Wole Soyinkaand
Lenrie Peters. (The length and detail of his
justificationwould almost lead the readerto
suspectthat the omissionsin questionwere an
afterthoughtand thatthe authorwas reluctant
to waste materialalreadywritten.) In point
of fact the volume is an introductionto six
African novelists, representedby a total of
twelve novels. By choosing only the "dozen
or so novels which seem to be of some im-
portance,and which are gradually finding
their way into school and university sylla-
buses,"Palmerrelegatessuchunnamedfigures
as AmosTutuola,PeterAbrahams,Ferdinand
Oyono, Cheikh Hamidou Kane and so many
moreto the categoryof Africanwriters"none
of (whose) novels seems to be of much sig-
nificance."I cannotbelieve that this is really
what he means to imply.
So much for what the volume is not. On
the positiveside, it is a collectionof individual
essayson threenovelsby JamesNgugi ( Weep
Not Child, The River Between, A Grain of
Wheat;see BA 42:3, p. 327), threeby Chinua
Achebe {Things Fall Apart, No Longer at
Ease, A Man of the People) two by Camara
Laye(The AfricanChild,The Radianceof the
King) and one each by Elechi Amadi (The
Concubine),Ayi Kwei Armah (The Beauti-
ful Onesare notyet Born;see BA 43:1,p. 152),
Mongo Beti (Mission to Kala), and Gabriel
Okara (The Voice). To the contemporary
Englishor Americanlay readeronly the names
of Achebeand, perhaps,Laye are likely to be
known.Palmer'sessayswill be of valueif they
stimulateacquaintancewith the great vitality
and varietyof other currentAfricannovelists
- those includedas well as many of the ones
omitted.
While the essaysin this volumeare straight-
forward,generallyconvincingand often quite
perceptive,little effort is made in each to go
beyond a considerationof the author under
discussion. Despite occasional references to
other,non-Africannovelists- Conrad,Hardy,
Kafka, et al.- Palmer makes no attempt to
abstractgeneral observationsfrom his rather
self-containedstudiesor to work his insights
into a largersynthesisof the kind presented,
for example,in CharlesLarson'srecent The
Emergenceof AfricanFiction (see preceding
review.
Still, shortcomingsnotwithstanding,An In-
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
troductionto the African Novel deservesa
reading. The essays are sound, level-headed,
objective studies that never degenerateinto
uncriticalpanegyric.Palmerfrequentlytakes
to taskthose Africannovelistsand criticswho
fail to maintaina similarobjectivityand who
see the worldonly in termsof two poles:good
blackand evil white. He succeelsin his stated
aim: to show that Africanfiction deservesto
be appreciatedand criticized with the same
standardsappliedto any other.
NormanR. Shapiro
Wesleyan university
noted
Terry Green. The Bystander.Nairobi. East African.
1971. 28 pages. 2.80 sh/EA.
Seventh in the "Plays for Schools" series, "The By-
stander" has little substance but some good speeches
and a sustained mystery. The action develops cleverly
toward a good fight scene, and in doing so manages
to demonstrate something of the manner in which
mob psychology operates. This is a useful play for
youngsters, as was demonstrated in March, 1967,
when "The Bystander"was first performedin Nairobi
by Jamhuri School pupils.
R. E. McDowell
The Insider. Stories of War and Peace from Ni-
geria. Enugu. Nwankwo-Ifejika. 1971. ix -f- 124
pages.
Although war has inspired great fiction, that fiction
was seldom written by the participants.The claim to
interest of the stories collected here- their proximity
to the recent Nigerian civil war- is also their most
severe artistic limitation. The publisher'spromise that
this is the first of a series confirms the tendency to
regard this volume less as a book than a literary
magazine with the expected unevenness in quality,
printing errorsand unpolished excitement of a forum
for new writing. Stories by such well known Biafrans
as Chinua Achebe and Flora Nwapa are balanced by
the works of less experienced writers. Each story is
precededby a plot summary, a biographicalsketch of
the author and a list, curiously entitled "Strange
Words," of Ibo vocabulary.The theme of corruption
in politics underlies some of the more lively stories:
Samuel Ifejika's "The Malaise of Youth" and Flora
Nwapa's "The Campaigner,"whose title characteris
a shrewd and powerful widow, vigorously portrayed.
Cliche and clumsy language characterizethe stories
such as Andre Aletta's "A Village in Agony" and
Victor Nwankwo's "The End of the Road" in which
the theme of the emotional cost of war is attempted.
Achebe's "The Madman,"based on an Ibo saying that
two people cannot be mad at the same time, tells of
the transfer of madness to one of a village's worthy
citizens and suggests the vulnerability of even the
apparently stable.
S. A. Ken