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Just when you
feel not to go along reading some stories, Abubakar remedies the pain with enchanting aftertastes. Abubakar is that good at giving any story a creative end. He darns
loopholes with stylish climaxes. The Whispering Trees is a collection
of 12 short stories; chic and thoughts ruffling. I love collections of short
stories. In them, there are wittiness, delights and numerous escapes that
prevent you from being stuck with drab stories. The Whispering Trees is like
that; while there are a number of stories that only serve to swell the counts,
there are many which hold their own. First of all, get this book, and afterwards;
study the confident strides of a debut leaving giant footprints.
With Abubakar’s ethereal
stories, I initially thought his is a pastiche of a known writer I had somewhere
read online. But by the time I got to Closure,
I could easily match him with the image in my head. His story, Closure,
was my favourite in Sentinel
Nigeria Issue 2. His and few others are the reasons I still subscribe to
that eMagazine. Abubakar writes to shatter your thoughts. As you read this
collection, your emotions are enmeshed.
More
importantly, Abubakar needs to be studied. One may be quick to name him a
misogynist or make the slip to tag him a hypocritical-female-sympathiser. In most
of the stories, the antagonists are mostly given a feminine flesh. In other few,
the fairer sex are sympathised with. Abubukar must be frustrated at the slow
law of retribution. He is seen to justify the good over the bad so quickly. In
this collection, he seeks to amend things on moral value, and to a great extent,
assumes a god over his fictional creatures; stitching up their wounds and
killing them at will. In doing this, there is a reversal of the expected and
the manner your thoughts are reshuffled to fit with Abubakar’s is amazing. It
is Abubakar’s belief that the bad, no matter their inevitability, shouldn’t
live long in their viciousness. This book is good but two of the stories are
poor. I will point out reasons presently.
These
Are Spoilers
Baba Idi’s
Enclave is a story too general. It has a snag
that makes mess of it. Baba’s Idi’s apathy to democratic activities may be understandable
but the presentation of the human-cause of his child’s death is too generic. I understand such
happens and the woes we suffer can be justifiably heaped upon corrupt leaders,
but including that in a creative piece in its ordinary form dilutes the story.
If a creative piece cannot reinvent what constitutes small talks to delight,
then I would rather not bother reading it.
“If
this politician of yours had not cornered the money meant for refurbishing the
hospital for his useless campaign, perhaps your sister would have lived. I want
you to think about that the next time you see the man’s face” (pg.
28)
Truly, our
leaders are corrupt, the roads are bad and Nigeria; a hell. Nevertheless,
retelling all these without some literary ornament makes the plot tediously
predictable.
To be candid, The
Cat-Eyed English Witch is another story that should be taken away from
this collection. It adds no significance to the pack. It trifles with the
Black-White stereotype and gets burnt for it. The story is as you can rightly
guess. It has a White woman coming to Nigeria for the first time because her
Nigerian husband has to bury his father. Her visit immediately disabuses her
mind of the Western media-fed images of the country. What a bore.
“One
night, he’d come home and told me his father had died and he needed to go back
to Nigeria… He had asked me to come along… We landed in Abuja and made the 130
kilometre trip to his village, Akwanga, by car. I hadn’t had a clear idea what
to expect but had half-expected to see semi-nuded children, barely able to
raise skeletal hands, their wide, hungry eyes imploring, begging to be saved…
That was the image of Africa I had always seen on the BBC. Instead, the people
had been vibrant, going about their businesses, displaying colourful wares
everywhere, their sweating faces smiling. ” (pg. 37)
As she settles
down with her in-law, she is faced with the difficulty of conformity with the traditional norms. The story continues on with wiggly hackneys.
“When
I had offered a handshake, she had just put her head down. I later understood
I’d been disrespectful. I had felt cramped by their communality…” (pg.
37)
Some
of the Well-Written
I was constantly
refreshed as I read these ones. In everything, they put this collection into
reckoning. They commix the humourous with the real; bringing about stewed
delights of diverse sorts. In this collection, these are
keepers.
Dear Mother:
I am always
after conciseness in a short story. When it stretches into a novella, it
harbours rubbish. Dear Mother is short and crisply told. It is the confession
of a distraught son to his mother.
One Fine Morning:
This is a joke
heralding doom. Button Nose’s first scheme might be successful. The second one; Sadiya
may not be able to clarify.
Night Calls:
A nightly phone
call; a mistaken identity; a deceptive love: Santi goes to prison. Farida;
unstable visits; a recorder; some crackly sounds; a stop: Santi nears the noose. I love
this story.
The Whirlwind:
Even the whirlwind
has got its season and purpose; for it at times brings rain. The beautiful
Kyakkyawa may be feared and roguish; beautiful and devilish. But all that have
got their moments and their ends too.
Abubakar’s The
Whispering Trees is more than a debut. It is a reading kindler.
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