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Magical Realism: Ben Okri’s The Famished Road
Ben Okri is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Having spent his early childhood in London, he and his family returned to Nigeria in 1968. He later came back to England, embarking on studies at the University of Essex. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Westminster (1997) and the University of Essex (2002), and was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 2001. Since he published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows (1980), Okri has risen to an international acclaim, and he is often described as one of Africa's greatest writers. His best known work, The Famished Road, was awarded the 1991 Booker Prize. He has also won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the Aga Khan Prize for fiction, and was given a Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has also been described as a magic realist, although he has shrugged off that tag. His first-hand experiences of civil war in Nigeria are said to have inspired many of his works. He writes about the mundane and the metaphysical, the individual and the collective, drawing the reader into a world with vivid descriptions.
Plot Summary
Shortly after birth, it became clear that Azaro was a spirit child. He had vivid dreams, which foretold the future and he could see spirits interacting with the living. The spirits called to him and caused him to leave his body for a time, which caused his parents to think he was dead. He woke up in his own coffin and his parents found they could not afford the spiritual ceremony to cut his obvious connection with the spirit world. Azaro grew and learned more about his "gift." He ran out of his compound (forcing his mother and father to follow) just before it went up in flames. Priestesses who saw his true power abducted him. Azaro made a narrow escape, only to end up in the house of a police officer whose dead son tried to communicate with him.
The Famished Road is the amazing story of the journey of a spirit child through the poverty and suffering of modern day Africa. In the pseudo- reality where the book is set, there is a spirit, as well as a physical world. A spirit child is one who only wants to be in the spirit world, so they kill themselves whenever they reincarnate in the physical world. The story is centred on Azaro, an abiku or spirit child. Spirit children are born into the world of the living but some promise that as soon as they are born they will die and thus return to their friends in the land of spirits. Azaro makes such a promise but on being born he is stopped by the beautiful, suffering face of his mother and decides that he will try life. His spirit companions do not like this and haunt him to return to the land of the dead. This makes the childhood of Azaro both beautiful and harrowing.
In almost every scene of this novel the world familiar to us leaps and pours with the beauty of a spiritual presence. Spirits mingle with the living, in human or animal form, or in the form of lights and omens. Sometimes Azaro disappears altogether onto a spiritual level and a world that is both magnificent and terrifying run by the reader.
Azaro is haunted by these spirits and some scenes can be quite distressing, even terrifying in places. The undead come as blind lecherous old men who want to use the eyes of children, beggars with misshapen limbs and horrific wounds, freaks and wild animals. Even the road of the title in this story is an entity with a stomach, a being who will destroy unwary travellers who do not leave proper sacrifices.
The novel is set in Nigeria and has a very African feel to it. We are always in the ghetto with Azaro’s family, always just on the brink of starvation. Spirits, herbalists and witches and wizards all have their places in the communities, the people are riddled with superstition but in the context of this story every superstition is a real answer and cure. Each one works and we as readers see the spirits being affected by the superstitions of the living.
Azaro lives with both abuse and a prevailing love. One of the most intriguing characters of the book for me was Black Tyger, Azaro’s father. A great boxer, Black Tyger is an abusive father and husband, the almost unbearable suffering of his life taken out on his wife and child. He is also a powerful and noble man crying to be heard. The boxing sequences of ‘The Famished road’ are among some of the most dramatic action scenes I’ve ever read, the opponents of Black Tyger don’t always come from the land of the living but from the land of fighting ghosts. The strength of the man and the power he draws from makes gripping reading. When he decides to become a politician we see he is noble in his thoughts, all he wants is to build schools for the beggars, the people laugh at him but I admired him.
Azaro’s mother likewise suffers hopelessly, etching out a miserable living by labouring all day to sell goods. At times it gets too much for her and she takes it out on Azaro but the love she also feels for her child and husband is heart warming. At the lowest points of our characters lives we sometimes get a glimpse of love or happiness that seems like a diamond found in a pile of coal. The novel is throughout harrowing and painful but the overall message is one of progress and hope.
Politics play a large part in the story as the party of the rich and the parties of the poorvie to get the people of the ghetto’s votes. Progress is represented by the splendid, voluptuous character of Madame Koto. This kindly, overweight lady begins the story running a poor bar of palm wine and her famous peppercorn soup.
Without giving too much away she is the first to bring electricity to the ghetto and the first to own a car, both stupendous, magical artifacts to the eyes of the very poor. The richer she gets though the nastier she becomes. It is brilliantly done. You will feel suffering reading this novel, you will feel hunger and long with the characters to find even the smallest of successes. In return you will be rewarded with some of the most beautiful prose I’ve ever read, as one critic on the sleeve of the novel says: “Okri is incapable of writing a boring sentence.”
Characters
1. Azaro is the story's narrator. He is an abiku, or a spirit child who has never lost ties with the spirit world. The story follows him as he tries to live his life, always aware of the spirits trying to bring him back.
2. Azaro's father is an idealistic labourer who wants the best for his family and the community. He suffers greatly for this, eventually becoming a boxer and later a politician. Azaro's father loves him deeply, but is often bitter at having an abiku and occasionally goes on angry violent tirades.
3. Azaro's mother works very hard selling anything she can get her hands on for the family. She cares for her family deeply and constantly gives up food and security for her family and their ideals. She is proud that Azaro is her son and goes to great lengths to protect him.
4. Madame Koto is proprietress of a local bar. She has a liking for Azaro, though at times is convinced he brings bad luck. She starts out as a well-meaning woman, trying to get along with everyone else. However, as the story progresses, she becomes richer, siding with the political party of the rich, and is often accused of witchcraft. She tries to help Azaro and his family on numerous occasions but seems to try to take Azaro's blood to remain youthful.
5. Jeremiah, the Photographer is a young artist who brings the village to the rest of the world and the rest of the world to the village. He manages to get some of his photographs published, but practices his craft at great personal risk.
The story moves between Azaro’s adventures in the real world with his struggling parents and dirty politics, and another peculiar world limited to Azaro’s vision – Madame Koto’s palm wine bar, the (famished) road and the forest – which are crowded with spirits, and supernatural elements. Often it is Azaro’s visionary world tha t leads him through all the tribulations of the real world.
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