This work is a rewritten, much longer version of a previous publication, Starbook (2007), and the author has undertaken a laborious re-envisioning of that work. It is also described by its publisher as an “epic novel”, and includes epic elements such as the supernatural, valorous heroes and a poetic pursuit of both love and artistic virtue.
Okri brings a brand of visionary imaginative release to what is essentially an extremely thin “story” embedded in folk tropes of a prince, a girl, and a tribal world of artistic people who see no separation between “reality” and dreams.
In this land of goodness a just and powerful king presides, whose son, the prince, falls in love with a talented but plain artist girl, the daughter of a master artist. The prince is challenged by a dark adventurer, the Mamba, who eventually fails in his ambition to woo the exceptional girl for himself. The rest of the narrative brings the lovers to a predictable union and onwards to the dreaded fate already foretold in both individual and collective dreams.
Tantalising hints of the ravaging of Africa by forceful “white spirits” who sail in; images of bloodied ankles in chains; and people crammed together in the holds of ships are also glimpsed from time to time throughout fairytale-like, short episodes. These unfold in a reverent, breath-held tone that becomes surprisingly irritating after the first 100 pages. Typical literary omens abound, as in “Meteors were seen at dusk. A golden light shone in the sky in the middle of the night...” This may be paradise before it is lost forever and also before anybody realised that powerful Africans themselves once used slaves.
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The idea of the sacred journey that leads to revelation through art is a powerful one and Okri’s writing, as one would expect, is often poetic. But poetic writing is not enough and although the scene-setting is sometimes evocative, the statements emerging from so many of these scenes seem repetitive and unconvincing.
In the end, the book is a protracted reflection regarding a world of perceived “innocence” preceding the onset of slavery. In such a context, it simply does not carry the artistic rigour that would add to the historical implications of its – regrettably – vague subject.
