Caine Prize has in recent years gone from the overfed bizarre stories
about Africa to stories that now
relatively tell our stories. Since Africa is still confronted with the issue of
social security, it will be more understandable that stories centering on
social security and its attended consequences will not cease in the nearest
time to come. In this shortlist, the stories focus on the daily economic
struggles of simple living in the continent. In this case, I refuse to see
Africa as a collective. And so, the shortlist will only be as reflecting the
concerns of their individual locale. They have not represented Africa, they have
just told a tiny narrative of the continent. There are still more stories to
tell. All that is needed are more exploring narratives rather than cheap boring
stereotypes. A greater part of the shortlist is poor. This is not of writing
skill but of the stories they tell. The
only piece that escapes this shared laziness spoils itself with the need to justify
its characters’ fate and actions. However, the 2013 shortlists are interesting
in their simplistic plots. This is so, as most times, bland and common stories draw
us because even the common is cheaply relatable.
The human survival is a theme central to all. The
shortlist is seen telling the typicality identified with their different
settings. And it is in doing this that some struggle with common banality in
their telling. One evil of retelling stories so common to us is the inability
to distance such narratives from the stereotypes embedded in them. So, if creativity
must come to bear, a masterly twist is useful. And that skill does not
naturally come with storytelling. We all tell stories. But only a writer with
the consciousness of brevity and diction does the job. We are already familiar
with most of these stories.
I quite find most of these stories preachy and intrusive. The writers
are too inclined on showing what is from what is not. They should know; a piece
is mired when its messages are pushed to the reader’s face. That is the snag
about Neo-classicism in literature. The Neo-classical ideal does not just work
in these days of internet writing. Let’s figure out the meanings ourselves,
don’t shove them down on us. Another common problem with many of the stories is
the intent to achieve justification too quickly. That is what happens when a
story starts off with the aim to compare two dissimilar things as observed from
a number of the stories.
2013 Caine shortlisted stories are just readable but not original. There
is a seeming desperation to the stories they tell. They are too forced. I am
not satisfied as a reader. What matters now is just the prize to be won and not
the imaginativeness of the stories. For me, just a story makes it pass ordinariness
of characterization and stock narratives. Just one.
“Miracle”
– Tope Folarin
This story does not tell anything new. This entry makes me question the quality
of the over ninety stories that didn’t make it up to this stage. The plot is so
dull and too simple. It is ordinarily a story about the religious deception and
the credulity of those caught in its wiles. Again, the predictability of the
story is a bore. One quickly knows where the story is leading to. Nothing is
hidden. And even the attempt at humour falls supine. It is just so riddled with
the usual protesting small talks about Pentecostalism.
The old man’s, the visiting pastor, show is melodramatic and tired.
“ ‘We must continue to pray
ladies and gentlemen! There are forces here that do not wish for this to be a
successful service. If we are successful in our prayers that means they have
failed! They do not wish to fail! So we cannot expect that our prayers will simply
come true; we must fight!...
But in order for your blessings
to be complete, you will have to pray today like you have never prayed before.
You will have to believe today like you have never believed before. The only
barrier to your blessing is the threshold of your belief. Today the only thing
I will be talking about is belief. If I have learned anything during my visits
to this country, it is that belief is only possible for those who have dollars.
I am here to tell you that belief comes before
dollars. If you have belief, then the dollars will follow.’”
Nothing is done to uplift the cliché catch-utterances and this spoils it
deeply. Nonetheless, there is a reprieve
in the laboured twist ending the story. I can imagine Folarin sweating sore to achieve
that as the main writing mismatches the creative end.
“Foreign
Aid” – Pede Hollist
Immigrant stories rarely interest me. There is an uninspiring pile of
them already. Anyone who’s seen the other side wants to tell some stories of
that side; of how it is different from here or of the little worth in going
there. Is such stories, what you are after are quite different from the
brilliance of the stories. You know it is always the usual stuff where dissimilar
experiences are compared. Pede’s diction saves this story for me. His
descriptions are fluid. They tangle. That is so much consolation for the
guessable storyline.
Balogun, an American citizen by sweats and hell returns home after
almost twenty years. Everything at home wears a blatant change at his arrival.
He is put off by the situation in his country and suffers a great inhospitality
by the cavalcade of a Serra Leonean Minister. At his home front, Ayo, his
deformed sister is transformed. Visitors are aplenty, his fanny pack is fast
sagging. A failed tryst and some dollars left, he boards a plane back to
America. Of some of the smooth descriptions, these court repeated reading.
“A few steps away from the
doorstep where Logan stood, a man walked up to the building, whipped out his
member, and sprayed the wall in a slow circular motion, as though he were
watering a lawn with a hose. He shuffled back a couple of times to escape the
splashback when his discharge hit a high orbit. After he finished, he
vigorously shook the member, tucked it back in with a samba dip of his butt,
and zipped up his fly. He gouged up a huge glob of spit and deposited it at the
soaked base of the wall. The man turned to leave, saw Logan, flashed him a
kola-stained grin, and skipped away, lightened and relieved.”
****