Clarity of language, of course, does not exclude beauty. Indeed, it is beauty per se. There are many ways of achieving beauty as I will demonstrate with examples from my chosen texts. Beauty, I might as well add, is actually a sum total of a well crafted story; when all the elements in the story sing and dance with one another in a sort of narrative symphony. Of course in every story we often chance on well crafted sentences that simply fascinate us. Such sentences, I argue, are almost always the result of charged situations in which the characters find themselves. A casual study of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness or Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin reveals that.

In their desperate search for complexity, or reeling in their very limited understanding of literature, some of our writers easily slide into clichés; they become esoteric and obscure with the belief that they are being deep; they produce grotesque world in the belief that they achieve lasting or deep literary effect. Rather than regurgitate clichés, it is better that a writer uses every day, crystal clear language to talk about the pains and joys of being human.

No novel ever perishes just for lack of tautened language. Novels, of course, can perish for lack of appropriate command of language. This will however, largely depend on the kind of language the author has chosen. Amos Tutuola's Palm Wine Drinkard or Ken Saro-Wiwa's Soza Boy might actually live forever for the very reason that they chose appropriate language to portray their world. Novels perish for lack of proper execution of the stories they set out to tell; they perish for ignoring to craft the human experience.

Every story, it is said, cries to be told, and it is the duty of story tellers to put themselves in the service of stories. The first thing for the would-be novelist, therefore is to find a proper narrator to carry forth the story. Another thing is to find a language that matches the world of the narrator. If, for example, a sixteen year old, modern girl tells a story her tone, vocabulary, etc must match those of an average or somewhat above average young girl. If she begins to spew proverbs as my father would, I would be forced to believe that there is some dissonance between her as the narrator, her author who created her and the world she addresses – the modern reader.

Having said this, there is a particular use of language in Purple Hibiscus and Everything Good Will Come that, of course, might not appeal to a lover of African traditional proverb. Yet, they are no less beautiful, and perhaps, they are even more beautiful for that very reason. Indeed, in their sophisticated use of imagery and metaphor, they heighten the reader's reception of their narratives. I have already lavished praises for these two novels elsewhere. My admiration of them does not ignore their obvious weaknesses one of which is characterization (See Sarah Manyika's review of Sefi Atta).

 

Lucidity of Language in Purple Hibiscus and Everything Good Will Come

In literary fiction, as has been hinted above, we aim at communication. But it is communication, whose nature is indeterminate because it is packaged in peculiar ways. Art serves communication contrary to what aesthetic objectivists would hold.

In Purple Hibiscus language helps us to better respond to the many possibilities of the world being exposed. To some, the Igbo words sprinkled in its pages might appear like exotic incense put out to attract foreign spirits. I agree with this critique. Yet, for many they create particular ambiance and, perhaps help us see through the language confusion of the Igbo world. Perhaps this Tower of Babel experience is not restricted to the Igbo. It is postcolonial.