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.