Book Review: The Wizard In Ngugi’s Craw

I did not enjoy reading Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s hefty almost 800-page tome The Wizard of the Crow. This is a shame, for I love Ngugi. I remember his book Weep Not Child with much fondness. I will always remember the chemistry between the two main characters young Njoroge and Mwihaki. As a boy, I fell in love with the way those two fell in love. Ngugi is a Read the full article.[/URL]

adebowale oriku · Jul 5, 2009 , 09:40 PM

Well, great review as ever. What else can I say? Ikhide's concise review of Ngugi's last effort is not just brilliant, it is also accurate. Too many pages - all of 800 - are wasted on muffled sound and passionless fury. One may only credit Ngugi for sitting to write such a huge book, but beyond that: Nothing.

Pius72 · Jul 6, 2009 , 12:39 AM

I no sabi book but I wonder what highfalutin theoretical expressions such as "farcical magic realism", "quixotic" and "tome" (where book, novel, work or blissful silence would have sufficed!) are doing in a short review piece by one with a new-found vocation to smear anything remotely related to academic work. Aren't these words supposed to belong in a universe you despise so much? What are such theoretical jargons doing in your writing? You have somehow created the impression that you have zero tolerance for anything like this and have even become a self-appointed police man with a mission to keep them at bay. How are you going to fit tomes and magic realism into blogs and Facebook? You will end up sounding like the abstruse writers you regularly denigrate. Someone talking about tomes instead of books would sound really strange in the Facebook community, abi? I guess our writers are not the only ones who add the bad habits they acquire in Euro-America to their already bad prose, abi? Apart from this little problem of do what I say but don't do what I do (which makes your critical utterances annoyingly prescriptive and high-horsyish - a practice that belongs in the 60s and 70s), your reading of Ngugi's latest novel is on point. He even had to cut it down to the 800 plus pages! He was already advertising it way back in 2000. So, he wrote it throughout the 90s. That may account in part for its being jaded - but it doesn't excuse it.

Pius Adesanmi

Ikhide · Jul 6, 2009 , 03:59 AM

Originally Posted by Pius72

I no sabi book but I wonder what highfalutin theoretical expressions such as "farcical magic realism", "quixotic" and "tome" (where book, novel, work or blissful silence would have sufficed!) are doing in a short review piece by one with a new-found vocation to smear anything remotely related to academic work. Aren't these words supposed to belong in a universe you despise so much? What are such theoretical jargons doing in your writing? You have somehow created the impression that you have zero tolerance for anything like this and have even become a self-appointed police man with a mission to keep them at bay. How are you going to fit tomes and magic realism into blogs and Facebook? You will end up sounding like the abstruse writers you regularly denigrate. Someone talking about tomes instead of books would sound really strange in the Facebook community, abi? I guess our writers are not the only ones who add the bad habits they acquire in Euro-America to their already bad prose, abi? Apart from this little problem of do what I say but don't do what I do (which makes your critical utterances annoyingly prescriptive and high-horsyish - a practice that belongs in the 60s and 70s), your reading of Ngugi's latest novel is on point. He even had to cut it down to the 800 plus pages! He was already advertising it way back in 2000. So, he wrote it throughout the 90s. That may account in part for its being jaded - but it doesn't excuse it.

Pius Adesanmi

Pius,

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. I don't understand the rudeness, maybe you and I need to go hang out at a bukateria and resolve whatever issues we have with each other. I am sorry if you consider me an anti-intellectual policeman, not sure why you would think that. I have my disagreements with you but they are not personal. I have disagreements with you precisely because your scholarship provokes thoughts in me. That, I think is as it should be. I do respect and admire your prodigy, I consider you one of Africa's important literary voices and no one take that away from you. I really do not have any beef with anyone, I simply have certain views about how our literature should be presented, etc. And I don't really view your works as inaccessible, so I am not sure where your aggression is coming from. But I am happy to talk to you about these things, nothing spoil...