I have a question, after finishing this book: how can I go back to living my daily work life? This masterpiece of imagery and language made me question everything about the capitalist machine.The story of the boy Azaro and his family's struggle in a poor neighborhood somewhere in Nigeria shuttles...
Definitely more readable than the first installment, but sharing in its lack of focus. This book very much feels like a middle book, where things are getting worse, without reaching a climax. Its chapters are very short, giving you the feeling that you are really making pace, especially since the...
Heaped full of tedious twists and turns, unnecessary verbiage and overuse of the word'astonishing'/'astonishment'. After reading the book, I realised the first and last paragraph carried the exact same message. Thus there was no need for a whole book; essentially, Okri wrote an essay, split it in...
At a few points, for maybe thirty or forty pages at a time, Okri's narrative gathers speed and escapes his overdone myth-making and oracular wisdom in favor of genuine story-telling. These reprieves, in concert with my high regard for Ben Okri, are the only reason I was willing to consume the rep...
The music was loud. Strobe lights writhed across walls and snaked over dancers. Everyone seemed a little nervous. The women had glassy-eyed stares and the men hung around striking listless poses like people awaiting the messengers of the new. Then the music improved. Lao and Mistletoe began to da...
I have seen devastated streets, broken bridges, flattened houses. The glass fronts of shops were all smashed, their goods looted. The commercial district was a mass of rubble. I saw piano shops with mangled instruments. Everything was in chaos. I saw unforgettable things. I saw a community stoned...
When she went in he was just draining a tumbler that was a quarter filled with ogogoro. He had been to a meeting, but because it had ended in quarrels, and because the lights had been seized earlier in that area, he had returned sooner than expected. He was sitting bolt up...