Customer Reviews

Death and the King's Horseman (Norton Critical Editions)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read this book in 1996, and I still remember almost every detail because it was so stirring, so moving. It is about pride and obligations and how the two shape one's role in society. It made me review my own definitions of these two things, my own life in different societies. I'm delighted to have read this book and will be reading it many times over.

In this play Soyinka gives such roundness to his characters that it is hard for some to decipher their goodness or "badness" as characters. The play is a story of the western colonizers' failure to recognize African culture as substantial. The play deals with the Yoruba religion and a specific ritual that is thwarted by an ignorant colonizer who does so for reasons traced back to ethnocentricity and racism. The man who is deemed to kill himself is pitied by the westerners and this shows their hippocrisy. By demanding that suicide was immoral and could not be a spiritual endeavor they denied the status of one of the most important men to grace Western Civilization with their presence: Jesus Christ. Christ gave himself away the same way that the character in this play does and did so for spiritual reasons that transcended himself.
THe play gives great insight into African culture and builds with intensity to a hugely climatic ending that is rewarding for the reader to experience.

At a university seminar in the US recently, Prof. Soyinka was asked to respond to charges by certain critics that his writing wasn't 'African' enough. He responded, saying "The people who say these things, I refer to as neo-Tarzanists, people whose Africa is the Africa of Tarzan, swinging from tree to tree. That's not my Africa", he said, to a standing, thunderous ovation. It is difficult to imagine a writer in English today with a wider grasp of the language. Some of his work is unbelievable - metaphor, irony, the supernatural, interwoven with tragedy, lyricism, and language. Top-draw.

Death and the King's Horseman is a play written by Wole Soyinka, whose main focus is on the difference between the Western culture as opposed to the African culture. In his play he demonstrates how the western culture feels superior to the African one by supposing that they can interfere in their customs. The westerners from the play, the Pilkings, invaded Nigeria where the tribe of Yoruba inhabits. Throughout the whole play, there was a constant struggle between the Pilkings and the people of the Yoruban tribe to stop a certain traditional ceremony practiced by the Yorubans. This consisted of the king's horseman commiting suicide one month after the king died. It was so customary and natural for this to occur, but for the westerners it was totally insane and inhumane. The end is very unpredictable and will keep you on the edge of your seat while reading this book. I highly recommend this book because it exhibits an abundant amount of insight on human nature and it also helps us attain a greater understanding of the African culture.

This play is a must read for anyone seeking the truth about race relations around the world. Especially between African people and europeans. I think the author's account of how the europeans tried to rob the Africans of what little pride, religion and culture they still had left spoke of the horrible genocide that existed then and continues now. It's also most disheartening to know that African people can't even have their freedom in death.

This is a definate must read. Written as a poetic play, Soyinka captures the Yoruba experience during the British occupation of Nigeria. It captures their perception of their colonizers, their religious ideologies in sharp contrast with that of the British, their political stance including about Yoruba persons who worked for the British at the time(hence, the mimic men/women) and their trauma and lamentations regarding the slave trade. The title refers to a specific issue that main protagonists will struggle with, leading to the Yoruba/British clash of religious and political ideologies. The result unveils the hypocracy of forced-conversion and explores issues of (in)humanity, suicide and freedom by examining each group's relationship with their leaders, their understanding of the divine God(s) and destiny. This book is one of the texts used in African literature classes.

I have read the other 6 reviews and I am sorry they got it so wrong. Even if what they say is very true but not related with the subject (Yoruba tragedy) that matter to us. "Death and..." is more related to the person who was asking help because she/he could not understand what was about. I would advise this person to read attently Nietzsche's "the Birth of Tragedy" and "the Antichrist" and if he has some more time, Shopenhauer as well (yet less influencer on Soyinka than Nietzsche). Soyika understand the terrible problems Africa and specially Nigeria has. However, the theme of this play is fare more universal. Is related with the creation and recreation of art and the human being in a turbocapitalistic society. It is about to cross the "abyss"˙

Be sure to read the author's note, because if you don't, you might take it as an East vs. West, colonial vs. tribal, new vs. old story as it would appear on first reading. But in his note, Soyinka states that the "threnodic essence" of the work is a theme even more universal: "the numinous passage which links all: transition." Change is indeed common to us all, and as my mother-in-law points out, change is usually perceived as bad. Yet change is something we all must come to terms with, and since one of literature's great benefits is to act as a mental dress rehearsal for life, this lean play (acessible on first reading, yet rich enough to reread) should find a place on every thoughtful reader's shelf.

The university-educated Soyinka (as one can infer from the author's note) has quite the erudite vocabulary, yet the prose style of Death and the King's Horseman reminded me more of ancient Greek tragedy in translation than anything else: simple yet poetic phrasing, and the homespun proverbial sayings of a pre-industrial age. What struck me as an information-age Westerner was how many of these Yoruba sayings (being related to animals or farming) were hard to relate to; an incidental lesson of this book was how detached from the natural world I've become. Visiting nature for recreation isn't the same as having your livelihood dependent on it.

Another aspect of this play that happens to be particularly interesting in juxtaposition to the film juggernaut of Avatar is that neither the Nigerian characters nor the English are portrayed as completely right or wrong, sympathetic or not. Sure, the English come off as somewhat ignorant intruders, yet they act in good faith; conversely, Elesin, the protagonist, initially appears heroic but as events unfold he grows less so. Whereas in Avatar the modern Westerners are evil caricatures and the Na'vi noble savages, in Soyinka's work matters are more nuanced--more like real life.

The literary criticism contained here will be extremely helpful in teaching this complex work. Kudos

The delivery was earlier than anticipated with good after purchase follow up. The book was in good condition.