Ogbeni Kadiri,
One distinguished professor ( Rabbi Harrow) has agreed with another distinguished professor (Obioma Nnaemeka) about terminating forthwith, what they term an "undignified discussion", they say out of respect for Mr. Achebe who is now with the ancestors.
Somehow, and I don't know why or how but this line just jumped in through my brow:
"Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cassady holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars ..."
Both of us agree that it's Mr. Soyinka's reputation that was impugned along with the reputation of the Swedish Academy who award the Nobel Prize in Literature and who deemed it necessary and fit to award the Prize to Mr. Soyinka. I am a fan of the bard and was an occasional visitor to the Nobel Library in the old town in Stockholm before going to Nigeria and after Nigeria, up to point when Mr. Soyinka was awarded the Nobel Prize. Unfortunately I was in London during the few weeks of Nobel festivities up to the time of the award ceremony and a few weeks after.
Not all the members of the Swedish Academy are absolute strangers to me. Of course in my Stockholm, especially the Stockholm of the 1970s -80s and the Stockholm of the eraly twenty-first century, parallel with that Academy there 's also what we call the Mafia, like T.S. Eliot some of them have now become respectable bankers, others including the newly born (not born again), remain in the literary underground including the kinds of people who write intellectual biographies and autobiographies, the kinds of people that are prepared to discuss anything, from the pereiphery or deep inside, from Lady Chatterley's Lover , through Ulysses to the wet dreams of the Satanic Verses, the Psalms of David, other autobiographical thoughts, the history of God, even the Holy Qur'an.
In his polemical works , his non-fictional essays, moral interventions, public advocacy, Mr. Soyinka uses the word obscenity in a very specific ways and the various ways in which the words obscene and obscenity are used by him occur with an unexpected frequency and persistence even for someone like me who is still catching up with his latest . In his moral lexicon it applies to various forms of corruption, mismanagement, human rights abuses, injustice, Boko Haram terrorism, Apartheid. He declared 1979 as the theatre year for the war against Apartheid...
In Mr. Soyinka's lexicon, what Uduma Kalu has done certainly comes under that category of obscenity and so in that sense, let us not continue with what Professor Harrow agrees with Professor Obi , is obscene , i.e. an "undignified discussion"
Let us agree, Toyin and you and me, that having registered our outrage and disgust and having no normal means or at this moment any divine means of compelling the recalcitrant miscreant Uduma Kalu to repent in this august forum, for wilfully defaming our Nobel Laureate in such a vile manner, the best we can do is to humbly beseech him to withdraw and correct his mischievous/ miscreant treatise and to apologise to his readers, who he has wilfully misinformed and misled and get him to understand that this is great disrespect to the cherished memory of the late Chinua Achebe.
For much lesser word crimes, this forum has lambasted e.g. V.S. Naipaul not so much for factual errors but for some of his perspectives which have been deemed to be disrespect to Mother Africa and her Africans, but at no time did anyone here request that any such discussions be terminated (it's all in the archives) – and of course all men are equal and this includes the living and the dead, George Bernard Shaw no less than William Shakespeare who he allegedly despised..(they say that death is the leveller that vfinally makes all men equal in the dust from which all men came.) Incidentally, I knew V.S. Naipaul and Derek Walcott's literary agent in Sweden (sadly, now with the ancestors) and from anecdotes trasmitted, both gentlemen ( Naipaul and Walcott) are fabulous personalities and have their own peculiarities and idiosyncrasies and indeed it's not merely because they were awarded the Nobel Prize or graduated maxima cum laude from this or that university that makes them or anybody a unique human being. As to character, well in Mr. Soyinka's Magic Lantern we learn that even the Yoruba gods can be mischievous.
The holy hour hath tolled twelve and for me it's time for some shut-eye
Your Brother Menahem
On Thursday, 4 December 2014 22:21:42 UTC+1, ogunlakaiye wrote:
Thank you Obioma Nnaemeka, unless Uduma Kalu performs Ukpu Alu - cleansing of abomination his 419 internet fraud on Soyinka and Nobel Price Academy will continue to generate discussion.
From: nnae...@iupui.edu
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
CC: NaijaP...@yahoogroups.com; wolesoyin...@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [NaijaPolitics] Nobel Prize Committee doctors Soyinka's interview calling Achebe a monster, who would hang a Nobel Laureate
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2014 23:28:27 +0000
PLEASE let us end this undignified discussion NOW before we spit more venom. Chinua Achebe is no longer with us. PLEASE show some sensitivity and respect.
Obi
Obioma Nnaemeka, Ph.D.
Chancellor's Distinguished Professor
Department of World Languages and Cultures
Women's Studies Program
Indiana University School of Liberal Arts
Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis
425 University Blvd, CA 543A
Indianapolis, IN 46202
Phone: 317-278-2038/317-274-0062; Fax: 317-278-7375
nna...@iupui.edu; www.iupui.edu
From: usaafric...@
googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com ] On Behalf Of Cornelius Hamelberg
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2014 4:10 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: NaijaP...@yahoogroups.com; wolesoyin...@yahoogroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: [NaijaPolitics] Nobel Prize Committee doctors Soyinka's interview calling Achebe a monster, who would hang a Nobel Laureate
Toyin,
I guess it's cultural and that's one of the things that this imp Uduma Kalu isn't capable of understanding - to the extent of attributing such perfidy to Wole Soyinka and the Swedish Academy, to think that Mr Soyinka could say such a thing about Chinua Achebe as if he thought that the late Chinua was some sort of Lucifer, primitive warlord, butcher or crucifier. I would like to assure Uduma Kalu that in the whole wide world of literature (in all languages) Chinua Achebe was not even a remote rival to Wole Soyinka for the Nobel Prize just before 1986 – or that the Swedish Academy would jump over Soyinka who had already won all that there was to win in drama - within the Commonwealth and that include Ireland. That the Swedish Academy would jump over Soyinka to award the prize to Achebe is a preposterous idea. Perish the thought! Nor did Chinua Achebe's output rival the quality of Mr Soyinka's output before or after 1986.
In 1979 when Mr Soyinka was in Stockholm attending the P.E.N. conference I asked him about himself and the Nobel Prize and he told me, " I also have my favourites" - and of course I don't think that Achebe is or was one of them. May his soul rest in peace.
Even the stories of the alleged rivalry between Salieri and Mozart never sank so low...
The nearest I can come to explaining this bizarreness is that Udama (sounds like Osama if it's terrorism on your mind) just as Sani Abacha could sound perilously close to someone hearing Chinua Achaba – if that someone is a little hard of hearing or if in that context that's what someone who thinks that Soyinka is " jealous" of Achebe would mistakenly hear what he wants to hear – that Mr. Soyinka would be so crude.
Like in Joel Osteen joke (and you'd catch the joke better if your heard Joel Osteen - with his Texas accent, telling it:
JOEL OSTEEN: "I heard about this 92-year-old man. He wasn't feeling up to par, and he went to the doctor for a checkup. A few days later, the doctor saw him out walking in the park. He had this beautiful young lady by his side, and he seemed as happy as can be. The doctor said, wow, you sure are feeling a lot better, aren't you? He said, yes, doctor. I'm just taking your orders. You said get a hot mama and be cheerful. The doctor said, I didn't say that. I said you got a heart murmur. Be careful"
On Tuesday, 2 December 2014 01:05:22 UTC+1, oluifayantra wrote:Uduma Kalu,
Soyinka on Achebe
With controversial issues like the case you are making, a way to help clinch one's argument is to take a screen shot, a picture of the web page where the evidence being referred to is and tender that evidence to make one's case.
That way, even if the evidence is altered, one has a picture of its previous state.
As it is, all we have is your claim and that of the chap at the link you gave that Soyinka made that unlikely statement.
You also gave a link to the Nobel Prize website as a source where the evidence can be found, in seeming contradiction to your claim that the evidence has been removed from that site.
If any such evidence, not just allegations, exists, people would like to see them.
The claim you are making and the story you and the writer you linked are building out of the claim is a practically impossible claim bcs Soyinka's attitude to Achebe and his references to Achebe are well known.
Soyinka has never been petty in relation to Achebe.
On what seems to be the effort of the writer at the link you gave to see Soyinka as tribalistic, take note that Soyinka was in jail for most of the war bcs the Federal govt believed his conduct and orientation was against their interests in the prosecution of the war, a view that is almost certainly factual.
He has consistently made a case against the massacre of the Igbos in Northern Nigeria, one of the causes of the Nigerian Civil War.
Soyinka and Achebe : Scope of Achievement
On the Nobel Prize, Soyinka is clearly a greater writer than Achebe.
I think the evidence is incontrovertible.
In terms of depth of creative power across various literary genres, the number of works and variety of genres in which Soyinka is able to reach his highest creative capacities, and the sheer variety of literary techniques he is able to skilfully employ as represented by each of these highest notes of creative expression and in his range of work in general, Soyinka is far ahead of Achebe.
Soyinka has great works of global stature in almost every genre, except perhaps prose fiction, where Achebe is stronger.
Even then, in the history of African literature, Soyinka's prose fiction must be mentioned on account of its subjects, themes and its technical creativity.
In prose fiction, Achebe's greatest works, in my view of those I have read, are the novel Arrow of God and the short story, "The Madman".
These are works that can stand beside the greatest works in world literature, not equal to them all, but not paling beside the power of those other giants.
Things Fall Apart is a great work, too, but I wonder if its as powerful as Arrow of God.
I have not read his Anthills of the Savannah and so cant comment on it.
The other genre where Achebe has great works is the essay.
His greatest essays, in my view, of those known to me, are two essays on classical Igbo philosophy, "Chi in Igbo Cosmology", "The Igbo World and its Art" and another in which he draws on Fulani mythology, "Language and the Destiny of Man".
One could add his essay on Christopher Okigbo " Dont Let Him Die".
His other essays are good, some very good perhaps, but I wont rank them at the level of those other tree.
Achebe is likely to have other essays which I have not read either bcs they are unpublished or I have not seen them in publication.
In poetry, he has some impressive poems, most memorable being "Refugee Mother and Child" but I doubt if his other poems stand out. The poems of his I know of were all published in one collection. I dont know of others outside that collection.
I have not read Achebe's There was a Country and so cant comment on it, but it would make little or no difference to the case I am making.
Soyinka, on the other hand, if he had written only the three philosophical essays out of the five, I think, in Myth, Literature and the African World, if he had published only his poetry in Shuttle in the Crypt, only his autobiographical prose work The Man Died, or only his play Death and the Kings Horseman, would have earned a place among the greatest in world literature from the earliest times to the present.
One could add his Idanre and other Poems as a work that must be mentioned in African literature.
I have not read some of Soyinka's famous works such as his play The Road and his autobiographical Ibadan, among others.
The consistency of his standard across genres, however, implies adding such works strengthens my assessment.
When you add Soyinka's other essays as those in Art, Dialogue and Outrage, his full complement of serious plays, from The Swamp Dwellers to Madmen and Specialists, and perhaps others published after those, and his comic plays, the Jero plays and others perhaps, the landscape is clear.
That's my view at least.
Soyinka and Achebe : Critical Relationships With Informing World Views
Achebe may be seen, in his best work, as approaching philosophical themes in a more tentative, more critical, more questioning manner than Soyinka, while Soyinka's work may be seen as boosted by his total identification with the philosophical ideas he was working with.
Within that context, Achebe may be seen as not drawing on the scope of creativity Soyinka does bcs Achebe is less certain of the validity of the self assurance of the Igbo world view he drew on, preferring to challenge its integrity in the name of respect for both human dignity and the paradoxes of human life and nature, while Soyinka was fully immersed in the celebration of Yoruba philosophy and spirituality.
He reaches great heights with this and with ideational distillations, later in his career, that go beyond his focus in Yoruba thought.
Perhaps I could revise my views later in considering Achebe as a more modern writer, achieving a greater balance of intellect, faith and imagination in relation to belief systems.
thanks
toyin
On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 8:48 PM, Uduma Kalu orgaran...@yahoo.com [NaijaPolitics] <NaijaP...@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
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