BOOK REVIEW: Namondo (Child of the Water Spirits) by Ntemfac Ofege
Ntemfac A.N. Ofege. Namondo. Child of the Water Spirits. Bamenda, Langaa publishers. November 2007. 360 pages. Available from Michigan State University Press and Amazon.com
Ripe with transfigurations and transformations, this novel promises to be a spirited and lingering read for all those who navigate multiple cultures, languages, times and geographies. Authors like Homer, who recounted such stories acquired immortality in their own right. It all starts in the beginning: "Chaos reigned in the firmament, until the ageless spirit Ovase Lova breathed and created dawn. Stars from his fingertips jeweled the heavens and newborn planets radiated throughout the vast universe."
Every one hundred years, or so, a book bursts unto the global readership and stays there for the next one thousand years and more. Ntemfac A.N. Ofege's Namondo (Child of the Water Spirits) is just that kind of book.
How the immortal gods meddle in the affairs of men has always provided ambrosial reading.
The river gods now dispatch Namondo, a liengu-la-nwanja or water spirit, to the land. The child of the river, alongside her twin brother, has come to purge the land of an evil cult. Namondo uses her magic ring to accomplish her task, but disaster strikes. The fearsome ring of the river must return to her son.
Ntemfac Ofege weaves a tale combining yesterday and today, the living dead and the living, tradition and modernity, scoundrel and righteous deities. This mythological narrative is rooted in that uproarious extravaganza called Africa - land of vicious serpents and elephant-doubles.
This is not a simplistic master narrative from a newbie author. This is energy; this is a cameo, simply un-put-downable. Namondo (Child of the Water Spirits) reads like a breeze. This is a bestseller by every definition of the word.
The magic about Ntemfac Ofege's impressive narration is his confident ability to weave such a sprightly tale, one combining yesterday and today; the dead and the living; tradition and modernity; scoundrel and righteous deities.
Imagine. "Darkness lay upon the firmament before Ovase Lova came. …" Many, many years ago, a tribe of prodigious villains and oddballs throve and prospered beneath the hulking Muya Mountain (actually Mount Fako). Within the crags above them throve a virtuous monstrosity, half-man and half-rock, called Efasa Moto.
Far beyond the vast seas yonder throve a vile entity- Emala, the twin brother of Efasa Moto, a dangerous deity who is the god of death. Namondo (Child of the Water Spirits) is indeed a helium mix of exotic sleazy characters and rogue deities each trying to outdo the other in wickedness, weirdness and ferocity.
"Efasa Moto then opened his monstrous jowls and spewed out fumes and flames and white hot water. Hither and thither, the mountain deity came and went and he cast molten rocks and pebbles from beneath the mountain right to the distant ocean. Then he caused the viscous discharge of lava to flow from his maw like a lustrous river of fire."
Take the other examples. Misodi is this man mountain of a wrestler, a great purveyor of who drools when bursting heads; Nnoko is this vicious witchdoctor who would sleep with anything even water spirits; Liombe is an arrogant native who would tempt providence by telling an evil seer that the seer is the son of a hideous witch and Manga is a Dark Seraph. Manga would always do all the biddings of Emala, the god of death.
In all of that, there is Namondo, a female beautiful beyond reason. "The girl-child, Namondo, the one the villagers called by her mother's name rather than her father's, sprouted like a sylph and became as beautiful as a legend. Even before she acceded to maidenhood, her beauty was incomparable in the three villages of Muya and yonder."
Namondo's story races, twists, turns and jumps from one emotion to another until the chilling conflagration on a bewitched train. This is mythology so vivid that it hums with life; powerfully descriptive, awesome, frightening, compelling, delightful, imaginative, penetrating and lingering.
The ability to paint pictures with words is not given to any writer. Ntemfac Ofege wields that skill with amazing ease. His is a rhythmic shower of flowery language, which titillates the senses, plays with the mind and conjures a gripping, unrelenting plot. Throughout the story, the reader will taste that uproarious extravaganza of Africa - vicious serpents and elephant-doubles.
"The squat and savage rhinoceros which thought it owned the grasslands upon the other side of the forests charged after the hunter to rend him. The beast missed the man by a hand's breadth and it plunged its single horn into the iroko tree. The dim-witted animal remained there snorting in grievous temper until the man found his knife of flint…"
Namondo (Child of the Water Spirits) is a refreshingly different take of the perpetual battle between the good, the bad and the ugly. This story refuses to sit still even for one minute. The reader will surely squirm in the chair as they devour page after page wondering what next. The narrative is so vivid that you can actually taste the story.
The scenery in this book shifts from Cameroon's Bakweri neighbourhood below the Fako Mountain to Bello in the grass fields, back to Muya, the village that sits besides the yawning Muya River.
Ntemfac's earlier works include The Children of Bethel Street, Growing Up, The Return of Omar and Hot Water for the Famous Seven.
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