Book Review
Oseloka Obaze*
Tuesday 17 February 2009
The Native Hurricane
Chigozie John Obioma
(ISBN: 1-84748-066-7: Athena Press Ltd, Twickenham, UK; 2008; p.148; Price, ₤5.99, $9.95)
Available at: http://www.amazon.com & http://www.athenapress.com
Chigozie John Obioma’s The Native Hurricane is a story told from a storybook, about the restoration of a town’s honor and man’s place with African deities. In the story, several human traits and emotions – bravery, sadness, innocence, doubt, love and tragedy—become entangled and interwoven like a fine enchanting fabric.
Quite by serendipity, The Native Hurricane comes to life, when Ugwunna, the initial narrator, returns to his native village of Umuagu from England. It was the end of the dry season. While in England, the youth had spent five years chronicling the history of his people and their village of Umuaga. It was a journey started by his desired to render to English missionaries in his village, the most compelling original story during a school competition. His story earned him a study visit to England. Upon his return, during a routine stroll into the Umuaga forest, Ugwunna encounters a huge ‘’red-headed vulture with fierce dark eyes and a hole on the top of its beak.” Although he had never seen the creature before, he was familiar with it, having written about it in a portion of his manuscript, just the night before. The rest of the story is Ugwunna’s total recall of the forceful story he told about the haunted village of Umuozala and its redeemer, Onyenmuo, which was now in manuscript form.
Every family, clan and clime has its secrets and Umuozala was no exception. Its secrets lay embedded in an untold story and the greatest tale in Umuozala’s history, known only one living being. The answer Ugwunna found out, rested in an untold story; “a tale of Umuagu that no one knows”, except for Okilo, who was his maternal uncle, but also an unclean outcast who had been banished to the Olioko evil forest –“the forest of the living dead”.
For answers, Ugwunna against advice and all odds traces the hermit Okilo to his jungle abode. He only did so after recalling his grandmother’s exhortation: “The dead can hear and give succor to the needy.” As Ugwunna had acknowledged, “That was the ways of our ancestors and I decided to follow it”. Getting to the roots of the fabled story required all of Ugwunna’s intuitive and oftentimes, his amazing display of shrewdness. That was the only means of getting the story out of the old man and understanding Onyenmuo’s mission of saving his people.
However, Okilo is also forbidden from revealing the mystery of the native hurricane. Matters were further complicated by the fact that Okilo carried the burden of knowing that he would not die and would live so long as the story remained untold. Okilo was the only survivor of the three people who had witnessed the duel of the gods in the sky. The other two had died mysteriously; but Okilo had the benefit of having interfaced with the messenger of Ojukwu, a foreign god, who gave him a portion that would keep him alive indefinitely, until the day he tells the tale of the battle in the sky that he had witnessed.
The novel proceeds apace, and entertainingly, as Ugwunna single-mindedly traced his way to Okilo in his forest abode. His unexpected arrival shocks Okilo, but not as much as the determination of this precocious youth seeking a story that brave men were afraid to hear; and one that he had begged over time to tell, but no one had listened to him. He knew, too, that “the story he was to tell would be the gallows on which he was to be hanged.”
After the initial pleasantries and entreaties, Ugwunna presses Okilo, “Nnayi Okilo, tell me the story of Onyenmuo”, he exhorted. Thus began the narrative in The Native Hurricane, rendered from Okilo’s perspective, he being the lone soul that knew much about Onyenmuo, the protagonist. Through the rest of the book, Okilo tells the fabled tale of a duel between two entities; a “duel between Ozala the god that rules over the Ozala River, and Ojukwu, the ruler of the hills and caves of Udi and patron of the vultures”. That fight between good and evil had wrecked Umuozala. He reveals how it fell on Onyenmuo to end this carnage, but he could not do so without first, finding the root causes and curse that had befallen his people.
Onyenmuo, it turned out, was a youth in the troubled village of Umuozala, which is contiguous to Ozala forest. Onyenmuo was a half-spirit and half-mortal youth designated by a foreign god, Ojukwu to become the singular force against Ozala, the legendary scavenging and vicious monster that strikes the village, every four decades, without any resistant or prevention. Ozala was also the deity the denizens of Umuozala worshipped. Those who eventually recalled Onyenmuo’s birth knew it was extraordinary.
The fight of the gods had its roots in the estrangement between Umuozala and Ozala, a deity they had long worshipped, which had turned against them. After lengthy cries of anguish of the Ozala people, reprieve eventually came from Ojukwu, the deity of the seven hills, but not without some costs. As it turns out, Ojukwu seeks to destroy the suzerainty of Ozala over Umuozala, which translates to wars in the skies and a psychological torment of the people, making Umuozala a “land of wreck and of calamity, of pestilence and of sleeplessness.”
Enter Onyenmuo, a child of mysterious birth, who in truth is a tool of the gods, an oracle of sorts, meant to destroy eternally the reign of Ozala over Umuozala. Onyenmuo is left no choice. The fate of Umuozala’s a village long ravished by fear and uncertainties rested on his youthful shoulders. It was an awesome task, but Onyenmuo fully understood that he represented his people’s best and only hope against this brutal god, Ozala. At a very tender age, he combated the tormentors of Umuozala, breaking in the first instance, the spell the priests of Ozala had over the people of Umuozala. At age 15, he had single-handedly defeated Aro slave raiders who invaded Umuozala. He went on to win the Ogbu contest, claiming seven skulls as his trophy. This and his other maverick deeds reminded his people of who indeed he was. “Incident after incident worked to broaden the scepter of heroism with which Onyenmuo was associated.” In time, he earned the sobriquets, Agu - the Lion- and Dimgba – the Master Wrestler - of Umuozala.
In a gripping tale that followed, Onyenmou rises to the challenge of his unchosen legacy. Despite his youth, he uplifts the Umuozala village with his bravery and led men who had been very cowed by Ozala to stand up and fight, even when most of them were ambivalent and had reservations and trepidations about the wisdom of fighting powerful deities. However, his task is further complicated when he falls in love with Ulodinma, the village belle who had been involuntarily betrothed by the gods to Ezi-Ozala, the high priest of Ozala. The initial liaison between Onyenmuo and Ulodinma resulted in Ulodinma’s pregnancy, and she consequently bore him a son, which only angered Ezi-Ozala the more. Believing that Ulodinma had consorted with an agent of an opposing god, thus defiling herself, Ezi-Ozala rapes Ulodinma, which in turn led to Onyenmuo killing the priest in revenge. The encounter set the stage for novel’s denouement. Consequently, Onyenmuo fought and won the great battle against the great Nri monster, and was able in the end, to proclaim from his deathbed, “Umuozala is free”.
Chigozie John Obioma writes fascinatingly well. The Native Hurricane, is charming, very readable and pleasurable, and concisely written novel. Such an accomplishment is a testimony to great natural storytelling skills. Although never indicated, Obioma must be a key beneficiary of the enervating, yet captivating African folktales told mostly on moonlit nights in his native Nigeria. If not, then, he has skillfully, captured his eminent place as a budding purveyor of African epic, in this debut work. Obioma has cut a niche for himself, by writing with the verve and flair of someone with the aged and well-trained eyes for Igbo cultural traditions and folkloric details. In addition, Obioma uses Igbo idioms -- “A face as fair as the anthills” -- and proverbs – “it is the sun that sends the rain in appeasement” -- to great effect.
Yet, The Native Hurricane could have used one more edit session before going to press. Several repetitions and silly mix up of minor details could have been dispensed with; for example, “dear” for deer”; “crow” in place of “cock”; “flying penguins” in place of “flying egrets” and “hand around” instead of “hang around”. Occasionally, essential narratives are left hanging at critical junctures, thus leaving the reader equally hanging, and struggling to read between the lines and connect the missing dots. This may be a sign of literary inexperience.
As twenty-two year old budding author, Chigozie John Obioma seems set to join the collective ilk of young Nigerian-born literary prodigies, Helen Oyeyemi, Chris Abani, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Uzodinma Iweala in the realm of renowned 21st Century African writers. Overall, this work is a great and much welcome addition to the growing compendium of African fictions and folktales. It is also African oral folklore immortalized. I enjoyed reading The Native Hurricane. As such, I recommend it highly.
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Mr. Oseloka Obaze is a founding member of the Kwenu.com Book Review Forum, which is dedicated to the promotion of books with Igbo and Afrocentric themes. He is also a supporting Member of the African Writers Endowment (AWE). From 1999 to 2005, he served on the editorial board of INYEAKA, the journal of Songhai Charities, Inc., a New Jersey community-based charity founded and run by Nigerians based in New York Tri-state area in the United States, first as its founding Publisher and later as the Editor-At-Large. He is also on the editorial board of The Amaka Gazette, the journal of the Christ the King College, Onitsha Alumni Association in America. His collection of poems, “Regarscent Past: A Collection of Poems” was second among the top three finalists in the poetry category in the African Writers Endowment Publishing Grant Program for 2004. He is working on a novel titled “Happy Eulogy”. He reviews books and arts strictly as a hobby.
© Copyright 17 February 2009