Achebe versus Soyinka
Posted by: Sam Omatseye on April 1, 2013
Barely two decades ago, poet and playwright Femi Osofisan delivered a broadside,
and it was as a keynote speaker at an annual convention of the Association of
Nigerian Authors. According to the big-eyed lover of theatrics, only two serious
Nigerian authors inhabited our literary firmament: Wole Soyinka and Niyi
Osundare.
Not a few writers and critics were scandalised by his claim. Many thought it was
deliberately contrarian, an act of drama by a dramatist to draw attention to
himself not by the pithy wisdom of his declaration but the mere vanity of it. He
was a public desperado banging his shoes to gain attention.
The first question thrown at him was predictable: What of Chinua Achebe? Wearing
a glum mien almost as defiance, he maintained his assertion and said many people
paid attention to Things Fall Apart, and that was not even his most accomplished
work.
At the time, I was in my mid-twenties and just beginning to overcome my illusion
from my teen years. I was weaned on Things Fall Apart, read it, worshiped its
creator and placed Achebe as the preeminent deity in the literary pantheon not
only on the African continent but all over the world. But how many writers did I
know and how many books had I read? How skilled was I in the art of appreciating
the collaborations of words into narratives?
But as I grew out of my naivety towards the end of my years at the Obafemi
Awolowo University, renouncing Achebe as a god of literature was like a shock of
atheism in the church. I was abandoning the temple, unfrocking the priests and
demystifying the canon. I became an apostate in the true religion. I felt conned
by my breeders. I ate the poisoned diet, malnourished by untutored chefs.
Literature belongs to a complex world, and because everyone can pick a novel or
play and read, the impression often comes across that it is everyone's game.
George Bernard Shaw said snidely that "vocations are a conspiracy against the
laity." He was right. Not everyone can be a medical doctor, or software
analyst or Supreme Court judge. Everyone can sing but not everyone can tell why
a good song is great although they have their personal attitudes and
predilections. Not everyone can postulate on good literature. Achebe's works
were good literature, but whether he wrote a great novel, leave that to those
who know.
I never intended to write another column after last week's in which I echoed
William Shakespeare when I characterised Achebe as a self from self. That is, he
struggled with alienation throughout his life.
Since the bard's death, many people either by subtle references or direct
barbs have tried to do two wrong things. First, they claimed he deserved the
Nobel Prize but was deprived. Two, that Achebe was greater than Wole Soyinka. By
inference, they claimed that Soyinka did not earn the prize and the wise men of
Stockholm ought to have given the medal to the author of TFA.
How come the father of African literature did not win the preeminent prize? The
phrase, made popular when he won the Booker Prize Lifetime honour, has been
appropriated to imply that Achebe was number one on the continent. So why did he
not win the prize? First, TFA was a great book not because of its literary
properties but because of its ideological potency. The Nobel Prize does not go
to a novelist whose work is signposted by sociological fixations supplanting
narratives with long pages of how Igbo villages are organised. When Osofisan
asserted that TFA was not his best book, he meant that more attention should go
to Arrow of God, a better book. So why do his admirers say less of Arrow of God
but pay more encomiums on TFA. It is because they are struck by the timely power
of the book. The West, embraced TFA for its introduction of its peoples to the
dignity of African society, a thing they did not care to glean from accomplished
works that came before TFA. Even the writer, Amos Tutuola, with his Palm wine
Drinkard, came long before. But the west wanted an African to write like them so
they could applaud him. And Achebe did it in a simple language.
Did he succeed by using the language as a tool of subversion? Hardly. For a
sampler of that sort, read Yambo Ouologuem's Bound to Violence. TFA was a
story of a clash of culture, which was nothing new. He wrote about the assertion
of local pride, which was hardly original. But it was a counter-narrative, and
it was done with gusto and minimal dexterity, and that was enough for them. They
were amazed at the manipulation of proverbs and other manifestations of local
colour. But the proverbs were never original, just like many of the proverbs in
Ola Rotimi's The Gods Are Not To Blame.
The other novel often quoted was A man of the People and critics have credited
him with prophetic insight. The novel predated the 1966 coup. But it was hardly
original because the conversation was already in the air on the continent. So he
wrote good works, not great works, not textured by deeper insights that you
would see in better accomplished works.
Achebe was nominated severally for the Prize, but he did not get it because his
works had to be weighed against the competition, other works also nominated by
various groups. It was the comparison that exposed his works. If TFA was not his
best work, it goes without saying that it was a book that thrived on popularity
not subtlety. Literature is not about the popular text. It is about high art. If
Achebe influenced a generation of writers, that makes him a great writer. But it
is a testament to theme and not artifice.
Soyinka, on the other hand, won based on his plays and poems. If we were to
judge by popularity, many would pick the Lion and Jewel and the Jero Plays as
Soyinka's masterpieces. But far from it. They compare in richness to TFA. Many
who cavil at his prize have probably not read the following: Death and the
King's Horsemen, Madmen and Specialists, Kongi's Harvest, A dance of the
Forest, The Road, Opera Wonyosi, among others. Each of these works is a stunner,
primed with layer after layer of thought and meaning wrapped in narratives.
Those who read TFA like clockwork may be put off by some of Soyinka's opus. So
they should not obsess out of ignorance. They should read first. If you knock
Soyinka on obscurity, you have a right. But high art is not always easy to
understand. Those who claim to enjoy TFA cannot write a literate essay on the
book and why it is high art.
Because of his stature as a playwright, some downplay his other gifts. In the
Nobel citation, he was also praised for his prison Notes, The Man Died, as well
as his long poems like Ogun Abibiman, which I guess many readers have not even
heard of.
It is true that some great writers are passed over for the prize. But few
disagree that those who win deserve the accolades. The other Nigerian I expected
to win was Christopher Okigbo, who was tragically lapped up by the Civil War.
Achebe was a good story teller, so was my grandmother. Turning from a raconteur
to an art of sublimity and depth belongs to the masters. Because of his
influence on a continent, I compare him with Samuel Johnson of the Shakespearean
era. He was described as a great writer but not a great artist.
Posted by: Sam Omatseye on April 1, 2013
Barely two decades ago, poet and playwright Femi Osofisan delivered a broadside,
and it was as a keynote speaker at an annual convention of the Association of
Nigerian Authors. According to the big-eyed lover of theatrics, only two serious
Nigerian authors inhabited our literary firmament: Wole Soyinka and Niyi
Osundare.
Not a few writers and critics were scandalised by his claim. Many thought it was
deliberately contrarian, an act of drama by a dramatist to draw attention to
himself not by the pithy wisdom of his declaration but the mere vanity of it. He
was a public desperado banging his shoes to gain attention.
The first question thrown at him was predictable: What of Chinua Achebe? Wearing
a glum mien almost as defiance, he maintained his assertion and said many people
paid attention to Things Fall Apart, and that was not even his most accomplished
work.
At the time, I was in my mid-twenties and just beginning to overcome my illusion
from my teen years. I was weaned on Things Fall Apart, read it, worshiped its
creator and placed Achebe as the preeminent deity in the literary pantheon not
only on the African continent but all over the world. But how many writers did I
know and how many books had I read? How skilled was I in the art of appreciating
the collaborations of words into narratives?
But as I grew out of my naivety towards the end of my years at the Obafemi
Awolowo University, renouncing Achebe as a god of literature was like a shock of
atheism in the church. I was abandoning the temple, unfrocking the priests and
demystifying the canon. I became an apostate in the true religion. I felt conned
by my breeders. I ate the poisoned diet, malnourished by untutored chefs.
Literature belongs to a complex world, and because everyone can pick a novel or
play and read, the impression often comes across that it is everyone's game.
George Bernard Shaw said snidely that "vocations are a conspiracy against the
laity." He was right. Not everyone can be a medical doctor, or software
analyst or Supreme Court judge. Everyone can sing but not everyone can tell why
a good song is great although they have their personal attitudes and
predilections. Not everyone can postulate on good literature. Achebe's works
were good literature, but whether he wrote a great novel, leave that to those
who know.
I never intended to write another column after last week's in which I echoed
William Shakespeare when I characterised Achebe as a self from self. That is, he
struggled with alienation throughout his life.
Since the bard's death, many people either by subtle references or direct
barbs have tried to do two wrong things. First, they claimed he deserved the
Nobel Prize but was deprived. Two, that Achebe was greater than Wole Soyinka. By
inference, they claimed that Soyinka did not earn the prize and the wise men of
Stockholm ought to have given the medal to the author of TFA.
How come the father of African literature did not win the preeminent prize? The
phrase, made popular when he won the Booker Prize Lifetime honour, has been
appropriated to imply that Achebe was number one on the continent. So why did he
not win the prize? First, TFA was a great book not because of its literary
properties but because of its ideological potency. The Nobel Prize does not go
to a novelist whose work is signposted by sociological fixations supplanting
narratives with long pages of how Igbo villages are organised. When Osofisan
asserted that TFA was not his best book, he meant that more attention should go
to Arrow of God, a better book. So why do his admirers say less of Arrow of God
but pay more encomiums on TFA. It is because they are struck by the timely power
of the book. The West, embraced TFA for its introduction of its peoples to the
dignity of African society, a thing they did not care to glean from accomplished
works that came before TFA. Even the writer, Amos Tutuola, with his Palm wine
Drinkard, came long before. But the west wanted an African to write like them so
they could applaud him. And Achebe did it in a simple language.
Did he succeed by using the language as a tool of subversion? Hardly. For a
sampler of that sort, read Yambo Ouologuem's Bound to Violence. TFA was a
story of a clash of culture, which was nothing new. He wrote about the assertion
of local pride, which was hardly original. But it was a counter-narrative, and
it was done with gusto and minimal dexterity, and that was enough for them. They
were amazed at the manipulation of proverbs and other manifestations of local
colour. But the proverbs were never original, just like many of the proverbs in
Ola Rotimi's The Gods Are Not To Blame.
The other novel often quoted was A man of the People and critics have credited
him with prophetic insight. The novel predated the 1966 coup. But it was hardly
original because the conversation was already in the air on the continent. So he
wrote good works, not great works, not textured by deeper insights that you
would see in better accomplished works.
Achebe was nominated severally for the Prize, but he did not get it because his
works had to be weighed against the competition, other works also nominated by
various groups. It was the comparison that exposed his works. If TFA was not his
best work, it goes without saying that it was a book that thrived on popularity
not subtlety. Literature is not about the popular text. It is about high art. If
Achebe influenced a generation of writers, that makes him a great writer. But it
is a testament to theme and not artifice.
Soyinka, on the other hand, won based on his plays and poems. If we were to
judge by popularity, many would pick the Lion and Jewel and the Jero Plays as
Soyinka's masterpieces. But far from it. They compare in richness to TFA. Many
who cavil at his prize have probably not read the following: Death and the
King's Horsemen, Madmen and Specialists, Kongi's Harvest, A dance of the
Forest, The Road, Opera Wonyosi, among others. Each of these works is a stunner,
primed with layer after layer of thought and meaning wrapped in narratives.
Those who read TFA like clockwork may be put off by some of Soyinka's opus. So
they should not obsess out of ignorance. They should read first. If you knock
Soyinka on obscurity, you have a right. But high art is not always easy to
understand. Those who claim to enjoy TFA cannot write a literate essay on the
book and why it is high art.
Because of his stature as a playwright, some downplay his other gifts. In the
Nobel citation, he was also praised for his prison Notes, The Man Died, as well
as his long poems like Ogun Abibiman, which I guess many readers have not even
heard of.
It is true that some great writers are passed over for the prize. But few
disagree that those who win deserve the accolades. The other Nigerian I expected
to win was Christopher Okigbo, who was tragically lapped up by the Civil War.
Achebe was a good story teller, so was my grandmother. Turning from a raconteur
to an art of sublimity and depth belongs to the masters. Because of his
influence on a continent, I compare him with Samuel Johnson of the Shakespearean
era. He was described as a great writer but not a great artist.
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