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A Good African Critic
Wole Soyinka Society
Wole Soyinka Society confront the vexed issue of the "cabalistic"
criticism of African literature. They question the many wrong assumptions about Africa and its
artform, and delineate the essentials of a good African critic and good criticisms of African
literature. In these informal, but lively and intellectual exchanges, the reader may encounter
some terrifying metaphors.
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Kole Odutola: Dear All, Many of you may not know that my late father, Prince Oladega
Odutola, was a writer. He left behind 17 books of different sizes, shapes and shades. No one
reviewed any of his books because the books are living entities; they walk around the entire
earth. However, one Sunday morning last month, when Christians were in church, he came to my
bedside and asked me--I am not sure he ever had any interest in such a subject when he was with
us--if I know what makes a good critic.
Instead of answering the question I reaffirmed something I read
in the African Concord of many years ago, when a Nigeria writer by the name of
Esiaba Erobi was quoted as having said something like, 'a critic is one who knows the way but
cannot drive a car.' Since that did not impress him, I thought dropping a few names would show
him that I had increased in knowledge, but he cut me short and asked if I think a good critic
is one who compares texts or one that spots errors in well written books. I thought to my self
and I remembered this list and I begged him to let me put the question to you all.
Though my father passed on on January 13th last year, he keeps a
very lively interest about things going on in Africa. I guess he will read your responses too
and come back to me. He also wants me to find out why there is no award for the best critic.
To that I had an answer...I said to him that we need to know who a good critic is before we
think of awards. I reminded him about Professor Abiola Irele who everyone cites as an 'organic
Critic' The Baba Oje of African criticism--One who understands the nature of language
and the structure of text. I told him the old Professor deals with the words and the metaphors,
he is not carried away by how many 'big' words the writer uses, but how the writer manipulates
language for maximum effect.
I remember also the best review I got for my toilet poetry
( The Poets Fled). One respected reviewer profoundly suggested: 'Please Kole, go
and sit down at 2am and write proper poetry.' Since then I have stayed up at every 2am
thinking about what to write so that my works will be meaningfully assessed. Well this is not
about me, but a message from my late father, who sends his greetings to all, and on whose behalf
I ask: Who is a GOOD CRITIC?
Esiaba Irobi: Thank you for quoting me out of context. You have to be careful so that
you do not end up like Chinweizu--the target of the quote--who wrote himself out of literature
and criticism. But I think that the controversy you are provoking will be very
useful for writers and aspiring scholars in the Soyinka Society. I was really getting worried
that we have all withdrawn back into our shell like snails whose horns have touched a mound of
salt.
Apart from Abiola Irele, the doyen of African literary
criticism, there are many other excellent African critics: the late Donatus Nwoga, Dan
Izevbaye--whose essay on Soyinka's The Road remains an eternal masterpiece--Emmanuel
Obiechina, Isidore Okpewho, Ernest Emenyonu, Chimalum Nwankwo, Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, MJC Echeruo,
Femi Osofisan and the unsurpassable Biodun Jeyifo. Among my own generation: Awam Amkpa, Osy
Okagbue, Ato Quayson, the prodigious Olu Oguibe and the very exciting Tejumolan Olaniyan and
many others.
A good African critic is one who does not write like Paul
Gilroy. A good critic is essentially one who awakens in us an enduring love and desire to
appreciate an artform, be it
| "A good critic is not one that finds fault, but
gives comments that help to understand the work much better, that is, without bias as there
are many biased, or what we call 'cabalistic critics' of our literature." |
painting, poetry, music, literature or pornography. He or she
tells us the strengths and weaknesses of each piece of work produced in an epoch and suggests
which ones are the most formalistically competent as a guide for other artists, especially
younger ones to emulate during their period of apprenticeship in the artform. Just as the
ultimate power of a work of art is to inspire, the ultimate responsibility of a good critic
is to make 'discoveries' and perpetuate the life of the artform he or she practices. This
appreciation involves knowledge of the formal necessities, that is, structural elements of the art,
its history, its theoretical implications and its ideological fall out.
This is where the late Edward Said comes in. Said made it clear
that in the 20th and 21st centuries, the responsibility of any serious-minded critic from the
so-called third world, who lives and operates in the so-called first world, is TO ANNOY PEOPLE...
I forgot to add that a good critic also gives us new insights
into works we think we have read, like Chinua Achebe's ground breaking rereading of Joseph
Conrad's Heart of Darkness. A good critic can also offer us new theoretical tools
with which to explicate new techniques in a form like the novel. Read Henry Louis Gates The
Signifying Monkey. Finally, a good critic can bring a body of knowledge from one part of
the world to the attention of the rest of the world. Isidore Okpewho and Chukwuma Azuonye have
done a lot to introduce African oral forms such as Oriki, the Epic long narratives, to
the attention of the Western world whose definition of literature/literacy is predicated on the
printed word, that is, cryptographic literacy.
My mother was an oral poet. She does not have a published
collection. Does that mean that she is not a poet? It is interesting to note that when Chukwuma
Azuonye went to the University to do his PhD, his supervisor, some English dimwit, with
face like over boiled beef, told him that there are no epics in Africa. Read Okpewho's The
Epic in Africa and you will see another important dimension of what makes a good critic.
A good African critic will always question the assumptions of the West and of Africans about
Africa. Read Mudimbe's The Invention of Africa.
Deji Toye: Without careering the debate into the other one, about 'who is an African
literary critic?' I also want to add to the list of our critics: Bernth Lindfors, Gerald Moore,
Eustace Palmer, James Gibbs etc, plus Edreld Durosimi Jones (the first to do a major work on
Soyinka's writing), Oyin Ogunba (whose Movement in Transition was the first to focus on
his drama) and, of course, Chinweizu and the co- bolekaja riders who provided light
entertainment while it lasted.
I belong to the very new crop of writers and my concern has been
that we do not see critics growing up with our generation of writers, which I consider a minimum
condition for the emergence of a healthy literature in our generation. I have had occasion to
attribute the lull in criticism of African literature to the brain drain syndrome, which has
'washed away its bridge of sustenance and progressive development.' I notice the ongoing work
by the team of critics abroad, including for example, Prof. Biodun Jeyifo who cut his critical
teeth as a leader among the young acerbic leftist critics of Soyinka, but whose current career
appears to be entirely focused on throwing light across some dim areas of Soyinka's writing.
Now this is my idea of a 'good African critic.' I mean, rather
than presenting a simple distillate of 'African Literature,' which is what the leftists and the
neo-negritudists (Chinweizus) attempted in their criticism of Soyinka's writing, there is a new
move towards acknowledging that African Literature, like all other 'national' literatures, can
only be a cocktail and not a distillate, and there is a place for the appreciation of the
individuality of genius. But my fear remains, where are our new critics? Or critics of new
emerging African literature?
Abiola Irele: You should add John Povey to this list.
Uduma Kalu: Deji, I think you missed the point. The question Kole asked from his dead
father is: Who is a good critic? Not reeling out names. Some of those names who reeled out are
not for me good critics, that is, if that term is enough description for those that make some
form of judgement on African literature. I think Kole's question is far more theoretical than
names. I think it goes back to all that we were taught in literature. A good critic is not one
that finds fault, but gives comments that help to understand the work much better, that is, without
bias as there are many biased, or what we call 'cabalistic critics' of our literature. You found
this during the argument between Soyinka and Mazrui few years back on the Internet where some
friends of Soyinka had to side with him against the Kenyan. In such bias it is difficult to
have a good critic. Look at the approaches of Obumselu, Anozie, Chinweizu, Nwoga, Obiechina
and Micheal Echeruo. I think a look at their works and those theories we learnt in literature
will help Kole.
Deji Toye: Uduma, I decided to 'REEL' out those names because Prof. Irobi listed the
names of some and their contributions to the criticism of African literature (which I think is
in reaction to Kole's mention of Prof. Irele's name).
| "The difference between literary criticism and
polemics is like the difference between constituted government and terrorism. To use a more
terrifying metaphor: It is like the difference between a chair and an electric chair." |
I noticed the absence of the names of
some non-African nationals who nevertheless contributed to the development of our criticism,
which is the reason for my caveat from the outset that I wasn't going to start the debate on
who is really a critic of African literature. And it is good to also notice that you managed
to 'reel' out more names of very, very respectable critics, which is also helpful.
The slight problem though is this thing about some of those
not being good critics, which you managed not to elaborate on. Who in particular? I hope we
are not starting what I had tried to avoid, that is, the exclusion of 'expatriate' critics from
the circle of 'good' critics of our literature. And what is the relationship between a
structuralist like Anozie and Chinweizu, for example, that makes them both fit your bill of
good critics and not, for example, a Lindfors?
And by the way, I thought I managed to put my view across on one
of the qualities of a good critic, which is taking creative genius as it comes and helping to
explain such to the general reading public. I feel this marks a departure from what the new
Jeyifo, for example, has been doing, and what he started his career with. And of course, from
the Chinweizu model too. I agree that this is not entirely definitive of who a good critic is,
but it is nevertheless my own view. We may be able to draw a full picture from other views that
will be expressed on the matter.
Esiaba Irobi: What went on between Soyinka and Mazrui was not criticism. It was polemics
attendant to a controversy about a documentary that Henry Louis Gates made on Africa. Criticism
would involve comparing Gates' work with Ali Mazrui's and Basil Davidson's representations of
Africa. Such work would have to be written and sent to a professional journal where it will be
sent to three referees who, upon reading it, will agree if it is publishable, that is, objective,
incisive and illuminating. Just like medicine and engineering, literary criticism is a
professional enterprise. It has its rules, modalities and craft. (Unlike email criticism, which
is just a form of emoting and very easy to do, which is why it is insignificant and perpetually
outside the flow of literary history.) It takes a lot of training and balance to become a
critic (age and reading help a lot).
Whatever Kole's question was: a spiritual message from
the great beyond or a hooded fictive attempt to know, two things are clear. One, you cannot define
what a critic is without naming names. Two, what constitutes 'good' will always be relative and
sometimes self-validating and self-serving. Apartheid, to the Boers, was a 'good' criticism of
African lack of material and artistic development! Coetzee critiques it in his novels. Who is a
better critic, which criticism will endure as a humanistic investment?
Note: The difference between literary criticism and polemics
(which email discussions often facilitate) is like the difference between constituted
government and terrorism. To use a more terrifying metaphor: It is like the difference between
a chair and an electric chair.
Kole Odutola: Now that the names have been dropped, and we now have a compass
to the location of African Critics, what we now need, I guess, is a typology of how they go
about their task. Let me start with those I term Critics of the Fringe (COF), since they are
not known to be critics per se, but do so once in a while. My feeling each time I read
Professor Osundare is that he hardly wants to annoy the writers whose works he reviews. He is
full of good words for the work. When he sees "evil" in the work he presents it in a very
palatable way. I read and still read his review of Okey Ndibe's Arrows of Rain. On
the other hand, Professor Femi Osofisan is a story (re)teller whose sweetness in retelling
stories can surpass that of blue berries. His knocks are hard, still writers love to have them.
Does any one remember his reviews of Dr. Catherine Acholonu's eight books?
Moving from the fringe to the centre, I'll need a
whole year to talk about Odia Ofeimun as a critic; he is my starting block for serious criticism. You
all know how combative he can get. If you do not want the truth, nothing but the truth, please
avoid Odia. Yet the claim to fame for these very few examples is not on their criticism.
When I first started my search for a better understanding of
who is a critic, I used Tunde Aremu as the sounding board and he warned me about Prescriptive
Critics. There must be a hidden taxonomy of critics that I'm not aware of.
I know of the three Cs of the creative loop:
The Creators
The Consumers
The Critics
As I understand it, the critics complete the loop. They are the unwilling gatekeepers of our
creative commune: the working-minds in the temple of creativity. Theirs is such a great
responsibility to humanity, and I adore them and wish I knew how their minds function. I'm
still waiting to know how come critics know the way but cannot drive the car ... yes, it is
taken out of context, but it says a lot about some critics.
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