Bottom Line

A coming of age story set in Nigeria in the early to mid 90s that explores the fractious relationship between four brothers against the backdrop of the optimistic but unstable political environment of the time.  The book shifts effortlessly between Biblical parable to crime novel making it a fascinating, surprising and revealing read.

Representative Paragraph

The prophecy of a madman…

Abulu had stopped singing by the time I had lost sight of those who had left us, and he had resumed calling Ikenna’s name. When it seemed he’d called it for the thousandth time, he cast his eyes above, lifted his hands and shouted: “Ikena, you will be bound like a bird on the day you shall die,” he cried, covering his eyes with his hands to demonstrate blindness.

“Ikena, you will be mute,” he said, and closed his ears with both hands.

“Ikena, you will be crippled,” he said, and moved his legs apart, folding his palms together in the way of spiritual supplications. Then he knocked his knees together and fell backwards into the dirt as though the bones of his knees had suddenly been broken.

When he said: “Your tongue will stick out of your mouth like a hungry beast, and will not return back into your mouth,” he thrust out his tongue, and curled it to one side of his mouth.

“Ikena, you shall lift your hands to grasp air, but you will not be able to. Ikena, you shall open your mouth to speak on that day”—the madman opened his mouth and made a loud gasping sound of ah, ah—“but words will freeze in your mouth.”

As he spoke, the din of an aircraft flying overhead mopped his voice into a desperate whimper at first, and then—when the plane had drawn much closer—it swallowed the rest of his words like a boa. The last statement we heard him make, “Ikena, you will swim in a river of red but shall never rise from it again. Your life—” was barely audible. The din and the voices of children cheering at the plane from around the neighbourhood threw the evening into a cacophonous haze. Abulu cast a frenzied gaze upwards in confusion. Then, as if in a fury, he continued in a louder voice that was whipped into faint whispers by the sound of the aircraft. As the noise tapered off, we all heard him say “Ikena, you shall die like a cock dies.”

Commentary

There’s this pivotal moment in The Fishermen where our narrator, Benjamin, tells us the story of how he and his three brothers, Ikenna, Boja and Obembe, were caught up in an impromptu political rally for Nigerian presidential hopeful Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (M.K.O.) Abiola.  When M.K.O arrives in a helicopter the boys start to passionately sing one of his campaign songs, which captures the politician’s attention.  He asks for the boys to be brought forward and, with his wife, a photo is taken of the six of them.  The image later appears in a calendar which becomes a prized possession for the four brothers.  This flashback to March 1993 is, however, preceded by the revelation that in a fit of anger Ikenna, the older brother, has ripped the calendar off the wall and burnt it beyond recognition.

This moment – the overwhelming optimism of the political rally juxtaposed against the shattered dreams of a burnt calendar – makes clear the novel’s main conceit, that is reflecting Nigeria’s political hopes and harsh realities through the brother’s fractious relationship.  And while there is something a little obvious about the metaphor, what saves the book, what makes it more than just a depressing examination of life in Nigeria in the 1990s, is how Chigozie Obioma subtlety shifts the tone of the novel.   What starts off as a Biblical parable, complete with prophecies and brother against brother, becomes a gripping and compelling crime novel in the second half.  And it’s this mix of elements that makes Obioma’s debut such a fascinating book to read.

Benjamin opens the novel by telling us how the brothers became fishermen after their father, who has an important job for the Central Bank of Nigeria, is transferred from Akure, a town in the west of the country, to Yola a town in the north.   The boy’s father decides to make the journey to Yola on his own, leaving the mother with a task of raising the four brothers and their two small siblings, including a little girl who has only just been born.  With their father no longer a daily presence in their lives, the boy’s decide to explore the world around them.  Following the advice of a friend the boys begin to fish at the Omi-Ala River, a poisoned watercourse that they’ve been forbidden from visiting.

On the way back from one of their fishing trips the brothers are confronted by Abulu, the local madman who prophesies the death of the older brother Ikenna at the hands of a fisherman.  It’s a chilling moment that, unsurprisingly, deeply affects the boys – in particular Ikenna.  Compounding Abulu’s doom laden prophecy is the punishment laid out by the boy’s father when he discovers that they’ve been fishing at Omi-Ala against his wishes.  His thrashing of the brothers and shaming of Ikenna in particular, is the final straw.  From that point on Ikenna, a young man who is depicted time and time again as a shield that protects his brothers from punishment and pain, begins to rebel against his family and community.  And with Abulu’s words a constant whisper in his ear, Ikenna begins to believe that one of his brothers is out to kill him.

In the novel’s first half the Biblical overtones are clear and sharp.  The enmity that grows between Ikenna and his brothers, but specifically Boja – the second eldest who sees himself as Ikenna’s peer– has a distinct Cain and Abel vibe to it.  Abulu and his unerringly accurate future visions reminded me of Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah who were persecuted for warning the people that their evil ways would inevitably lead to tragedy.  And the boy’s father has all the intimidatory qualities of a God that is quick to anger and mete out punishment under the guise of justice.

Then, once the events involving Ikenna and Boja reach their tragic, violent peak, the novel subtlety but cleverly shifts tone.  It took me a good fifty or so pages to realise that The Fishermen had transmogrified into a crime novel.  A murder is plotted, though there’s reluctance to follow it through, and then when the plan is executed and the victim is killed the murderers are overwhelmed with fear and anxiety as they attempt to cover their tracks.  I’m being deliberately opaque as to the plot specifics, because the last third of the novel, while not necessarily crammed with twists and turns, is genuinely compelling and gripping.

While the narrative does go through a transformation, the actual voice of the book remains consistent throughout.  And this, ultimately is the great strength of The Fishermen, because while some of the metaphors might be on the nose, and while the Biblical parallels may be a tad overplayed, and while the shift in tone is surprising and enjoyable, it’s the fact that the story is told through one pair of eyes that binds these threads together.  Because above all, The Fishermen is very much a coming of age story as Benjamin recounts his experiences when he was a boy, recalling the pain, fear and sadness of a brotherhood that is lost and a Nigeria that never truly breaks free of its violent, colonial past.

If the novel has a weak element it’s the characterisation of Benjamin’s mother.  In the early parts of The Fishermen we see her regularly admonishing the boys, constantly threatening violence when their father comes home.  And when tragedy strikes the family, she goes insane with grief, forcing the father to institutionalise her for a period of time.  Aside from the cliché of the weak mother unable to cope with her unruly sons or a tragic event, we get no sense of her as a person.  I also never felt any love between her and the boys, in contrast to the respect the brothers feel for their father even if he is the one who does the thrashing.

Still, this is a fantastic debut novel.  Yes, it has something to say about Nigeria’s political landscape in the mid 90s – the optimism and hope for a bright future that never pans out (until possibly recently).  But from my standpoint the joy of reading the novel was how it refuses to pigeon-hole itself in terms of tone and narrative; how the shift from Biblical allegory to crime novel is nuanced and exciting; and how the prose, maudlin but never overwrought, delivers a coming of age story that’s different and new and fresh.