MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS- AMOS TUTUOLA

AVAILABLE Excellent. This book is actually 2 novels published together. I read the second novel (but first published), The Palm-Wine Drinkard, a few months ago and also loved that. The novels are similar, they both feature narrators traveling through supernatural settings on a, mostly vague, quest. In the Palm-Wine Drinkard, the titular character is searching for his palm-wine tapster and in MLITBOG the main character is trying to get home after accidentally running into (you guessed it) the bush of ghosts while avoiding slavers. The book is not flavored with a west-African (specifically Yoruba) vibe, and  that vibe is the main character. Imagine someone read Grimm’s Fairy Tales then rewrote them all in her own voice with a main character moving between and connecting the scenes. MLITBOG is that but instead of Grimm’s, the base material is all the folklore and ghost stories Tutuola heard as a Nigerian kid. Every vignette and chapter is distinct, they seem to have the own logic and to be fairytales unto themselves. As the narrator travels between towns in the Bush of Ghosts he encounters areas covered in webs where the ghosts hunt and eat spiders, television-handed ghosts, ghost kings and politicians, we learn that some ghosts are dead, even in the ghost-world and are in (what seems to be) hell, we learn ghost jail is a huge fire. We see the narrator marry a ghost and have half-ghost children. There’s a lot going on and it’s all excellent. It’s great to pick up and read small sections of, get your mind-blown, and then put it down without worrying about losing the through-line. 

I was also reminded of an essay I read, maybe a decade ago, by Thompson, who is a Yoruba expert, about the concept of Itutu, a Yoruba term that means (again, according to Thompson, I certainly don’t know anything about Yoruba culture) something along the lines of collected and calm and cool. In fact, Thompson seems to think that the very American concept of “cool” is rooted in this term that originally applied to the expressions and aesthetic of faces in Yoruba sculpture. Again, I don’t know anything about these statutes but the main character in MLITBOG (and Palm-Wine) is remarkably cool and calm. He is constantly being confronted with unbelievable and supernatural situations, he’s away from his home and family for years, he ran into the Bush of Ghost itself to avoid slavery and is constantly treated with slavery, cannibalism (is it cannibalism if you’re eaten by a ghost?), incineration and all other manner of terrible fates. He’ll often say he’s scared or confused but then just move on and tackle the next situation. It’s an admirable quality that confounds a more typical, character-driven reading. Again, very dope. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in fantasy or Italo Calvino. Also, Ice T’s character on Law and Order:SVU is named after the author, I have no idea why. 8 stars.