OLAtunde Chidera Obafemi’s Silver Palm Frond is the interesting, thought-provoking, and inspiring narrative of the experiences of the Nwoke family, from the eye of one of the Nwokes, Mackson, to be precise.
It is a simple but well crafted plot that moves from the family house to the school and back to the family house, where the narrator, in a bid to express some air of freedom and exhibit the opulence his family is known for, falls into the hands of some abductors. The anxiety, the intrigues and the desperation that ensue form the bulk of the 275-paged novel.
Mack, the narrator, undergoes a period of torture, anguish, desperation and loneliness, but above all, a period of self-discovery and rebirth in the hands of his abductors. During the period of his incarceration, he learns that evil machinations could grow root and later overwhelm the owner if not nipped in the bud. He also discovers the potency of humbling oneself before his creator by kneeling down to pray especially when all else fails. His vivid imagination and succinct description of the moods and the plight of the abducted young ones brings to sharp focus the predicament of the Chibok girls which though has attracted global outcry still remains unfathomable. Mack and his fellow victims escapes at first but are later recaptured before the intervention of the security agents. When he finally re-unites with his family, the lid of a can of worms opens up, and he discovers much to his pleasant surprise that the woman he had grown to hate as his biological mother is after all an impostor, who is actually the mastermind of his kidnap. He also discovers, to his pleasant surprise, that he has a twin sister, Gbemisola.
The novel, divided into fourteen sub-titled chapters, covers such themes as bullying among school kids and siblings, parental favoritism, social consciousness and over pampering as a form of domestic divide-and-rule system borrowed from our colonial masters. It also probes into the challenges of inter tribal marriage, kidnapping, corruption and other myriads of seemingly intractable problems bedeviling this country. Other aspects deftly treated in this very engaging novel are the aspects of self-discovery, forgiveness and giving back to the society through philanthropy.
Set in contemporary Lagos, the novel is written in the first person POV which enables the reader to have a firsthand encounter with the inner workings of the narrator, his wishes, thoughts and actions. The diction is quite appropriate to the young adolescent age of the narrator, who, for the better part of the novel suffers one form of oppression or another at home, school, and on the street with a negligible iota of respite and a glorious ending. The descriptive prowess of this young writer, Olaunde must have been informed by his early exposure to literature and his precocious artistic sensibility to the written words. His diction is simple but rich in striking coinages and expressions that will hold the reader by the jugular right from the first page to the last page of the novel.
The characters are distinctive in mannerisms, expectations and speech nuances and the author displays some level of mastery in the consistent portrayal of the registered traits of these characters. For example, Seyi is portrayed as the over pampered spoilt brat who exploits her ‘last born’ status to get away with many misdemeanors that her siblings dare not attempt and this characteristic permeates the entire novel . Dami is the first born, but the domestic bully who masterminds the killing of their grandmother and also perpetrates several defiant antics within the household unmolested because he will always craftily shift the blames on his introvert younger brother, Mack who is the narrator. Sola, who later joins the family, shows ample traces of a growing lady with class and panache. Even where the characters are inconsistent with acceptable social behaviours, they are consistently inconsistent in this novel. Klaus, for instance, is a notorious bully whose stock in trade is physical oppression of junior students like Mackson and all through the novel that anti-social behaviour sticks with him, so much that whenever he comes in contact with his victim, he pushes the latter to the floor. At the end when Mackson asserts himself and breaks free from his grip, Klaus continues to torment other junior students.
The humour in the novel finds expression in the author’s choice of words and power of description. On page 59 for instance, “ Dad once said that my faeces smelt so bad that they were powerful enough to wake someone in coma.” Still in that fashion is another one on page 71 where the ‘stench legacy’ is used to describe the stench pervading the rest room long after Mackson must have left the restroom. The first humorous excerpt can also be regarded as hyperbole, which takes us to the presence of several poetic devices in the novel. This also attests to the poetic sensibility of this young writer, who interjects some of the chapters with relevant poems. Apart from the sufficient employment of similes and metaphors, he also makes use of chiasmus. A couple of examples may just suffice here. On page 27, while describing the wrinkles on the face of his grandma, Mackson compares them with the muscles of a labourer’s veins but added that ‘the only thing was that they weren’t that strong’. Most of the similes and metaphors conform with the principle of ‘no cliché’ as they are fresh and imaginative. And for chiasmus, page 139 of the novel reads: “I didn’t know what to expect, didn’t expect what to know”.
These and many more devices add up to enrich this novel in a way that makes it irresistible to any adventurous reader. The title is a symbolic reference to the dichotomy between the haves and the haves not, the privileged few and the less privileged. While ‘silver’ represents the rich and the privileged few, the ‘palm frond’ represents the poor and the depraved people in the society. It is a subtle clarion call for the rich to add bright colours the lives of the poor people in the society.
There are however few typographic errors in spelling which probably eluded the notice of the editor. Also, the reality of the offspring of a union of an Igbo man and a Yoruba women bearing purely Yoruba names throughout is questionable since a typical Igbo man would at least imprint Igbo names on his children even if they bear Yoruba names alongside. Then, the end bits appear a little over dragged, especially after the 11th January party in honour of the twins and the less privileged members of the society. But since there is no perfect literary work anywhere, the few lapses pointed out are neither enough to diminish the aesthetics of the work nor tarnish the delectation of the reader in the course of reading this new entrant into the literary space.
Above all, the novel is strongly recommended for parents who shower superfluous affections to their favourite children to the detriment of others, wealthy members of the society on the need to put smiles on the faces of the less privileged members, policy makers and the youth in general. The most remarkable lesson to be taken away from reading this novel is on page 247, where the author remarks through mum, “ you don’t have to own the whole world to save at least a life.”
•Dr Iguanre is a lecturer at the Department of Languages and Literary Studies, Babcock University, Ogun State.
