Ethiopia: Nigerian Author Ben Okri On the Idea of Writing

On the back page of The Mystery Feast (Though on Storytelling), we found the following words written by the author. “In every moment, we are part of the infinite stories that the universe is telling us and that we are telling the universe.”

What struck me about Ben Okri’s 2015 booklet in the form of a book was its size and format, or presentation. It is a booklet that fits into one of your pockets, and it will take you less than half an hour to read the 38 pages. Nigerian writer Ben Okri is famous for writing big books like ‘The Famished Road’ in three volumes, which is his masterpiece. It is the first time that I bumped into a booklet-sized work of creative writing by one of the best-known younger and modern writers in Nigeria.

The Mystery Feast by Nigerian author Ben Okri is not a book but a booklet, judging by its length and size. It is 41 pages long and the size of half a pocketbook. Yet, it is still a book because there is no page number and size limitation for a book to be called a book. The beauty of Okri’s booklet is that within its covers are worth at least a medium-sized book of at least 200 pages. In the booklet in question, we find three parts with three different titles. The first part is entitled “All We Do,” the second one, “Under the Sun” (a meditation on stories and notes to a modern storyteller), and the third called “The Story in the Next Room.” The size of the three parts varies from 2 pages (All We Do) to 24 pages (Under the Sun) and The Story in the Next Room (3 pages).

The first part entitled “All We Do”, is presented in the form of a poem that encompasses the author’s thoughts about the story. It says:

Our public acts are dreams.

Our private acts are dramas.

Beyond our mind, reality moves.

Unknowable like the darkness

Before creation.

I did not quote the whole poem because it may take up space on this page. The above stanzas are enough to reflect the author’s basic idea. These are poetically expressed thoughts on the story presented in one page of the booklet. This is half of the poem, but it already reflects the author’s main thought about story and about story writing.

The first stanza of this poem (lines 1-5) says:

Gazing at the shape of a hill,

The grey horizon,

A woman reading a book,

A landscape shaped by history.

All we do is story.

In this stanza, the author, on behalf of all authors because he is saying “we,” tells us about what writers are doing. Whether we gaze at the shape of a hill and the grey horizon beyond it, whether a woman is reading a book, or whether we look at a landscape formed by history, what we do is tell a story. Life is a story, nature is a story, and reading this story is in itself a story. There is no space in life without a story manifesting it and being told by the writer. In this way, life is a collection of stories.

The second stanza continues to reflect the author’s thoughts. In this stanza, Ben Okri compares writing with nature, i.e., submerged rivers, misted streams, bending the light, etc. He describes writing by using simile, symbols, or figures of speech.

Submerged rivers are our thoughts,

Misted streams our hopes.

Like the spider we turn

All things into ourselves.

We bend the light

Of time into fables.

In his reflections gathered under the title, “Under the Sun”, Ben Okri continues his musings on storytelling and its meaning in human existence or human beings. He says, “There is nothing that expresses the roundness of human beings more than storytelling. Stories are the highest technology of being.”

“There is in story the greatest psychology of existence, of living. Indeed, there is in story something semi-divine. The nature of story itself is linked to the core of creation. The story belongs to the micro-moment after the “let there be light” act of creation”.

In the above two paragraphs, Ben Okri is equating the act of divine creation to that of human creation in the form of the story. So, the story is creation that reflects the divine because God has created man in his own image and has imbued him with the capacity for creation in the form of storytelling. I would say that man’s act of creation in the form of writing or reading the story is a recreation of divine creation. It is the reflection of what God has already created and not the original version. By implication, the writer recreates a world that is already created by the creator.

In the following paragraph, Ben Okri deals with science and technology and its central place in modern human life. He says, “We live in a time in which we are being told that the main things of value are the things of science and the things of technology. Our lives are being compressed into the technological reality.” Ben Okri is not comfortable with these assertions about defining human ability as the act of scientific and technological discoveries.

Okri says that being human is having many-sided abilities and talents. He calls it the man-sidedness of being human. He says, “But it is worth remembering the many-sidedness of being human. Great evil befalls us when we restrict ourselves to just one side of our being.” His conclusion is that science and technology are also animated by the story. He asserts that, “At the heart of all science -its experiments, its theories, its interpretations -is the story instinct” In other words, science and technology reaches us with written stories. They are expressed in stories before they translate into effect or actions.

One of the striking ideas behind Ben Okri’s conception of the story is that we are not the originators of stories but those stories express themselves through us or that we are the vehicles and not the originators of the great stories mankind has so far produced. Okri asserts that, “Stories bear the same relations to us that dreams do. Except that stories are coherent dreaming.

“Where do we think that stories are coming from anyway? Do we think we entirely make them up? Do we think that Homer wholly invented The Odyssey? Or that a single human being imagined The Tales of One Thousand and One Nights? Or that Shakespeare originated The Tempest? There is a presumption in thinking that we entirely invent our stories. Rather it could be said that the stories come through us, assemble themselves out of the elements of our lives and imagination. We receive and shape them. All true storytellers are modest.”

The above is an original outlook on how we produce our stories or where our stories come from and that is impressive. This is a viewpoint that puts our conventional outlook into question.

If there is story, there is also imagination. Ben Okri’s next question is, “How do we awaken imagination? According to him, “One of the ways, passed to us with cunning simplicity by our ancestors is storytelling. But it takes many forms. A painting on a cave wall of a man pursuing a bison is a story. The frescos of Giotto in Assisi are distilled stories. Stories are intersections between mortality and immortality.

“When we tell stories, some immortal parts of ourselves are singing in time. When we tell stories, ages awaken. When we listen to stories, our future takes clearer shape. That which is beyond time is wiser than time. Somewhere I wrote that stories can conquer fear. That is because fear comes from unknowing, and stories help us know a little more. The things the heart knows shine greater light than the things the head knows.”

The last part of Ben Okri’s booklet is entitled “Notes to a Modern Storyteller.” It is a collection of short sayings or aphorisms on writing. He starts this section with two-liners like, “The most sensational stories are not necessarily the ones that endure.” and “The stories that last are the ones most cunningly, most mysteriously told.” “Our age is lost in sensational tales. Without genuine mystery, the mystery of art, a story will not linger in the imagination.” A story is a spirit essence. It wanders the ether till an open heart, a receptive mind, gives it habitation.” “Maybe the life of a nation–its health, its spiritual strength–can be deduced from the stories the nation tells, the stories it suppresses, and the stories it sanctions”.

The aphorisms are few, but they are condensed or squeezed in such a way that they say much about writing with a few words. This is a minimalist approach that is pregnant with much more thoughts, reflections, and tidbits on the nature and function of writing in our modern age. Ben Okri’s stories in this booklet cannot be evaluated by their length but by the untold wisdom that is hidden in many of his reflections. He has given the reader the opportunity and the joy of mystery and interpretation, which in itself is the very essence of good storytelling.

“Packed with ideas and inspirations, The Mystery Feast offers numerous pathways into the magical world of storytelling. Beginning with a poem, “All We Do,” Booker Prize-winning novelist Ben Okri presents his considered thoughts on the purpose and meaning of stories, concluding with a series of condensed “Notes to the Modern Writer.” The collection is completed with a ‘stoku’–a brief tale on the theme.

Based on decades of honoring his art, his stimulating booklet gives a glimpse into the mind of a master of contemporary storytelling. In this way, Okri’s booklet can be seen as something greater than a bigger book.