Visionary mythopoesis in fictional and nonfictional prose anniversary. WhatAk ́eis about is the process of individuation of the future
author from the earliest years of very dim, unformed consciousness of
a distinct selfhood to the emergence of a remarkably strong sense of his
own uniqueness against the backdrop of family, hometown, nation and
the world. The very well deserved critical success of the book derives
from the memorable, richly textured and convincing manner in which
this process of a unique individuation is narrated. One of the means
by which this is achieved is the author’s gift of near total recall and the
imagistic manner of rendering recollection and memory of the earliest
experiences, though the accuracy of some of his recollections in this
memoir has been challenged by a leading feminist critic and scholar,
Molara Ogundipe.For instance, in one of these powerful renditions
of recollected memory, at about the age of two, the legends of Ajai
Crowther’s historic tenure in the Ak ́e bishopric literally come alive as an
apparition of the famous cleric steps out of his framed picture making
the terrified boy flee in fear. In another mesmerizing narrative sequence,
Bukola, a playmate of the author deemed to be a “spirit child” shares a
meal and holds an animated, lively conversation with her companions
from the spirit world in a locked room in which she is the only living
human being.
Perhaps the single most effective narrative technique used inAk ́e–a
technique first used inThe Interpretersbut almost entirely absent inSeason
of Anomy– is that of an effective, powerful animation of a large cast of
characters and personalities as a human backdrop to the individuation
process of the young protagonist of the narrative. Given the fact that
this technique is at the core of the novelist’s art, its effective use inAk ́e,
IsaraandIbadan, in a descending order of execution, lends force to our
contention that there is a blurring of generic boundaries between the
novel proper and other ancillary sub-genres in Soyinka’s prose works.
It is remarkable that as a childhood memoir, the large cast of charac-
ters animated inAk ́eas a human backdrop to the protagonist’s evolving
sensibilities is made up largely of adult figures. At the centre of these fig-
ures are of course the portraits of the author’s parents, “Essay” and “Wild
Christian,” the former presented more extensively and intricately than
the latter, but both collectively profiled as surely one of the most well-
matched monogamous marital couples in modern African literature.
This profile is all the more surprising given the fact that “Essay” and
“Wild Christian” are presented as the very quintessence of basic con-
trasts in temperament and sensibility: “Essay” is the essence of order,
composure and unflappable self-possession, while “Wild Christian,” as