Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau

Imagine yourself riding in a torrid bus filled with passengers; the day’s heat is also dancing in the bus. In a corner of the bus, you hear someone snivelling and changing seats. Why? He was consistently brushed by another passenger (maybe an old man). Now, how would you narrate the story?

                Exercises in Style tells the above story in ninety-nine amazing ways. The author experiments with voice, point-of-view, symbols, and metaphor, just to mention a few.

                Every writer or aspiring author, in my opinion, needs this kind of writing exercises. It encourages one to experiment with various forms of narrating a story.

Finding the star in Ben Okri's STARBOOK

STARBOOK is not an ordinary book. It is eerie and enigmatic. The story was passed onto the author by his mother.

There are different books in this book. Each book is weaved around a single theme. It talks about the quest of artists and art; the struggles of an artist in the contemporary world and importance of history in art.

                The strength of the book, to me, lies on the excellent use of African oral tradition. The author uses riddles, parables, paradoxes, songs and aphorisms to drive home his points. Simply put, this is a re-awakening of African narration.

                The sentences are simple but complex.  

                

Related losses in Ben Okri’s Dangerous Love

The novel captures the different faces of love an individual can encounter in a life time. First, love between man and wife (characterised by extra-marital affairs); second, love for a chosen career and third, the love that exists between citizens and country.

                Through out the novel, there is a constant revelation of the various kinds of love. Omovo, the main protagonists knows love but later realises his definition of love metamorphoses as events unfold.

                With an excellent eye and ear for detail, Okri tells a tale that is characterised by the African folkloric tradition.