Expensive Cost by Oluwadarasimi Oyeyemi – SYNW Book of the Month (November 2020)

EXPENSIVE COST BY OLUWADARASIMI OYEYEMI – SYNW BOOK OF THE MONTH (NOVEMBER 2020)

Reviewer: Niyi Oyedeji

OLUWADARSIMI Oyeyemi’s book, Expensive Cost, explores the life of Dayo, a spoilt boy who, through the careless attitude of his parents towards his life and future, becomes a miscreant.

Dayo, a young man with several opportunities before him, becomes a terror to not only his family, but also to those around him.

The book tells the story of the ‘careless’ parents who, in the name of love, neglect their primary responsibility to their child and spoil him almost beyond redemption.

The family of Solape is blessed with a baby boy and as is common with all parents, they strive to ensure that he always has reasons to be happy. This aim though is taken too far, as the young boy, much to the concern of well-meaning friends and ignorance of the parents, is spoilt a great deal.

Matters are taken a bit far when not only is Dayo not encouraged to study for exams, but also assisted to cheat his way through school.

The relationships of his parents with their friends are destroyed just to prevent people from criticizing the way Dayo is being raised.

And though Dayo loves and cares for his parents a great deal before going to higher institution, eventual happenings make him forget and even ignore their existence.

Dayo’s upbringing is a bit perplexing as it is revealed that his parents are capable of raising a child the right way as shown in the birth of his sister, Solape, who contrary to the attitude of her brother, is highly-disciplined, well-mannered and very intelligent.

Dayo’s decadence is further encouraged when he mixes and makes friends with the wrong company who not only encourage his behaviour, but also make it worse. He sinks further into moral decay until the school has enough of him and sends him packing, not affected by this, he is eventually caught on the wrong side of the law.

Luck is on his side, however, as not only did his parents take him back, they both share in the blame for his behaviour and prayerfully hope for a second chance for him. He restitutes his ways and returns to school and makes a name for himself in the long run.

The story of the Solape family is a happy ending both for Dayo and his sister Happy Solape and even for the parents.

“Expensive cost” is a book that exposes the evils of bad home training and also the possibility of a second chance for those who are ready to work for it.

 

Knives and Nappies by Halima Alli - -SYNW Book of the Month – (October 2020)

 

MEMORIES FROM THE SCALPEL ; A REVIEW OF HALIMA ALLI’S KNIVES AND NAPPIES

 

Reviewer: Wale Okediran

Hospital stories are famous in Literature for their large followership. The reason for this could be because people generally love to know how other people are faring with their health concerns or how they too will cope when in such a situation. Yet, for some others, it is just curiosity or that unexplainable human behaviour of sadism, joy from other people’s suffering. Whatever it may be, the truth is that people just enjoy reading about other people’s health concerns. I should know this. After more than ten years of running my ‘Ask The Doctor’ column in one of Nigeria’s oldest and largest circulating newspapers, I am often surprised when people accost me at social events and shower me with compliments about my column.

In KNIVES AND NAPPIES, the author who is a multiple Caesarean Section (CS) recipient tells her story in simple and easily accessible language.  The book is divided into three main sections. While Section One ‘The Caesarean Section Handbook’ tells the reader all he/she needs to know about Caesarean Sections,  Section Two ‘The A,B,C of Caesarean Sections’ contains the various explanations about CS by doctors and Section Three, ‘Our Caesarean Birth Stories’ enumerates personal stories by those who have gone through the rigours of Caesarean Sections.

In addition to the above named sections, the Appendix is full of additional information for patients preparing for CS from how to prepare for child birth, a check list of what things are needed for a CS to the kinds of foods and drugs to consume during child birth.

So rich and educative is the book that apart from telling her story, Halima has successfully given us a book that can be useful not only to prospective patients, but also to health workers, researchers and students alike.

IFEWUNMI by Dipo Fagunwa-SYNW Book of the Month – (October 2020)

 

IFEWUNMI  BY DIPO FAGUNWA-SYNW BOOK OF THE MONTH – (OCTOBER 2020)

 

Reviewer: Tunde Fagbenle

 

 

The story of Ifewunmi the protagonist of DipoFagunwa’s new book, IFEWUNMI, is one long encyclopaedic narrative of life and man’s foils and foibles, dreams and ambitions, successes and failures, love and malevolence; and, at the end, the triumph of goodness and innocence over evil machinations and man’s inhumanity to man.

 

The story is long and winding because of Dipo’s ambitious attempt to cover almost all imaginable circumstances of life and their contradictions in his biblical preachment of values for the reader to borrow a leaf or two from.

 

Although written in English but the book is essentially Yoruba folklorist in an unmistakable voice of Dipo’s late father, the iconic pacesetting Yoruba author Chief D. O. Fagunwa of blessed memory.

 

Early in the book Dipo regales us with a eulogy to palm-wine reminiscent of the late dramatist, Kola Ogunmola’s Palm-wine Drinkard, that ran for 3 pages and ends with this ode:

            “The friend of ages, the balmy drink of time

            The lathery imbibe of generations to come

            You have my respect.

            Non-drinkers are simply suffering.”

 

Dipo continued: “Palm-wine was my best friend, but meat toasted my throat. Tilapia seduced my spirit but catfish was jealous because mackerel was around so I prostituted with stock-fish who pitched its tent with pepper-soup. If you saw me you would want to be my friend. I was in another world. I was happy, contented and fulfilled.”

 

Replete with English rendition of Yoruba poetry, proverbs, and parables, Dipo demonstrates his mastery of Yoruba language and competence at their narratives in the English language. Describing the mood on the day Oroowole (Ifewunmi’s father) died:

“It was a day sadness took over our lives and men looked morose

and spent; children cried and their parents wailed; women banged

their heads against walls and men rended their clothes in public.

Pets were sad and refused to eat; dogs could not bark, fish went

down the deep, chickens could not come home to roost and goats

of the neighbourhood walked around with their heads bowed in

sadness. They had lost their stubbornness. Everyone was sad and

it was not difficult to know that a nobleman had gone and a gem

was lost. That was the day the cock crowed after a great man, the

valiant hunter went to the wild but never returned and the elephant

hunter held his gun but could not fire. Oroowole travelled on that

day to the land beyond, a place of no return where elders meet and

mortals are not allowed to engage with them except in dreams.”

 

Such is the captivating, even if at times salacious, language of IFEWUNMI, story of a lovesick hero that traverses the world (his world) in search of his kidnapped lover who is under the evil spell of his deranged friend turned foresworn enemy who is on perpetual run with his captive in an unending chase full of breath taken misses and maddening ironies.

 

Dipo has showed himself a master of improvising names that depicts the character:

“I am Inulayewa, a native of Ilakose. My father, Olowo Igbo…

My mother was ItunuOkan. She was from the home of Inurere.

My mother’s elder sister was Itelorun the wife of Igbadun from

the homestead of Suuru…My grandfather was Ifoya, the husband

ofIfedaru from the home of AibaleOkan where Inunibini is the

head of the family. Ifedaru had two children for Ifoya. The first

wasOlowoIbinu who was the husband of Idamu Aye and the

second was Olowo Igbo who was my father…”

 

Such apronym technique dominates the story such that almost no single character bears a name that does not take from his or her personality. And so you have such names as Kogberegbe, Ilenikuwa, Idamuaye, Folafoko, Inudidun, Ajedubule, Inulayewa, Mojereife, Ahonnirowa, Ajokomande, Agabagebe-obirin, Oyeparapo, Imodotun, Ogbonsayeko, Ikaseyi, Esandetan, and so on and so forth. The names are deep Yoruba contrivances that thankfully for non-Yoruba speaking readers are translated (explained) in the glossary at the end of the book.

 

The story is an epic of the proportion of the Greek classic Hercules or D. O. Fagunwa’sIrinkerindoNinu Igbo Elegbeje. Indeed it is tempting to conclude that D.O is speaking from the grave through his son, Dipo, but in the English language.