A big laugh in a dark world

Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth by Wole Soyinka tells a story of contradictions, starting with its title. It’s a sordid story about the human condition by one of the most consummate storytellers alive today.

The novel opens with the sentence: “Papa Davina … preferred to forge his own words of wisdom.” That was, for example, his famous “perspective is everything”. Prime Minister. “Perspective is Everything” can even be seen as a reminder of King Lear’s resounding words of tragic wisdom, “Maturity is Everything,” though Lear’s tragic world and the comedic world of the Chronicles are poles apart. When a writer like Soyinka laughs, it can have the impact of a tragic blow. He is the first black African writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature and has been among the continent’s most notable writers for the past 50 years. He is a novelist, playwright, essayist, political activist and societal critic. He has only written two previous novels, The Interpreters (1965) and Season of Anomy (1973), and Chronicles … appears after an interval of 48 years.

Chaotic world

The novel has many stories that intermingle and revolve around the mysterious murder of a highly respected and popular engineer, Duyole Pitan-Payne. Prime Minister Goddie, False Prophet Papa Davina and many more are all involved in the plot in different and complicated ways. There are also other characters who dominate the chaotic world of the novel, such as Pitan-Payne’s best friend, award-winning surgeon Dr. Kighare Menka, famous for his work with the mutilated victims of the militant group Boko Haram. Through it, the novel opens a black market for human pieces in which the elders of the country have a stake. Science, religion, business, and superstition blend together in eerie ways in this underworld adventure where human organs are used as charms to gain power, kill enemies, and other purposes. Some of the great literary works, like The Brothers Karamazov, are built around murders and can be read as detective stories and great explorations of life and searches for meaning and intuition. They are read, experienced and understood at different levels. Chroniques … also offers different reading levels, and a contradiction holds these levels together. A loud laugh roars its grim world, making its inhabitants the happiest people on the planet. There’s a piquant irony here, but it’s a perspective that makes us understand the world better. Laughter can probe the meaning of misery as much as tears can.

This is a complex job that requires some care and effort to follow. There are a large number of characters, and perhaps not all of them are essential to the story. The language is a bit dense, not the simple language Soyinka is known for. Some readers might even be tempted to give up or stop due to the complexity of the story, although whoever persists will certainly be rewarded. An understanding of Nigerian politics might help the reader to appreciate the novel better. But it should have been the other way around!

A cultural icon

Soyinka is more of a playwright, poet and essayist than a novelist. The Nobel Academy described him as someone “who shapes the drama of existence with a broad cultural perspective and with poetic overtones”. He was also a political activist and protested against personality cults and dictatorship. He has championed human rights and has been a constant critic of his country’s political culture. He has been imprisoned and faces the death penalty. He wrote on toilet paper in prison. He has influenced public thinking and perceptions in many ways as a writer, activist, rebel, lecturer, man of the theater, professor at some of the best universities in the world, thinker with an international imprint and audience, and even as the atheist son of a cleric. Soyinka is one of the most important cultural icons of Africa, indeed, the world, important not only for her writing but also for her opinions, positions and life. Its sensitivity is both modern and rooted in its traditions. Chroniques … has all the elements of this sensitivity.

But I played a mental game after reading the book. What would I have thought of this if I hadn’t known the author was Wole Soyinka? I haven’t read it in decades and maybe didn’t immediately recognize that the writer of this novel was the one I admired in the 1980s. I wondered if I would still have the same point of view. view of the book. I certainly think he’s a better playwright than a novelist. It was a lesser Woyinka who wrote this, but roughly the same writer. We get a glimpse of a beautiful vision, but young Woyinka might have delivered it better.