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The Famished Road Trilogy #2
Songs of Enchantment
Sequel to The Famished Road, winner of the Booker Prize in 1991, this book continues the story of Azaro, the spirit child. The author also won the Paris Review Aga Khan prize for fiction.
304 pages, Paperback
First published April 27, 1993
About the author
Ben Okri
83 books903 followersPoet and novelist Ben Okri was born in 1959 in Minna, northern Nigeria, to an Igbo mother and Urhobo father. He grew up in London before returning to Nigeria with his family in 1968. Much of his early fiction explores the political violence that he witnessed at first hand during the civil war in Nigeria. He left the country when a grant from the Nigerian government enabled him to read Comparative Literature at Essex University in England.
He was poetry editor for West Africa magazine between 1983 and 1986 and broadcast regularly for the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985. He was appointed Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College Cambridge in 1991, a post he held until 1993. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1987, and was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Westminster (1997) and Essex (2002).
His first two novels, Flowers and Shadows (1980) and The Landscapes Within (1981), are both set in Nigeria and feature as central characters two young men struggling to make sense of the disintegration and chaos happening in both their family and country. The two collections of stories that followed, Incidents at the Shrine (1986) and Stars of the New Curfew (1988), are set in Lagos and London.
In 1991 Okri was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road (1991). Set in a Nigerian village, this is the first in a trilogy of novels which tell the story of Azaro, a spirit child. Azaro's narrative is continued in Songs of Enchantment (1993) and Infinite Riches (1998). Other recent fiction includes Astonishing the Gods (1995) and Dangerous Love (1996), which was awarded the Premio Palmi (Italy) in 2000. His latest novels are In Arcadia (2002) and Starbook (2007).
A collection of poems, An African Elegy, was published in 1992, and an epic poem, Mental Flight, in 1999. A collection of essays, A Way of Being Free, was published in 1997. Ben Okri is also the author of a play, In Exilus.
In his latest book, Tales of Freedom (2009), Okri brings together poetry and story.
Ben Okri is a Vice-President of the English Centre of International PEN, a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre, and was awarded an OBE in 2001. He lives in London.
He was poetry editor for West Africa magazine between 1983 and 1986 and broadcast regularly for the BBC World Service between 1983 and 1985. He was appointed Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College Cambridge in 1991, a post he held until 1993. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1987, and was awarded honorary doctorates from the universities of Westminster (1997) and Essex (2002).
His first two novels, Flowers and Shadows (1980) and The Landscapes Within (1981), are both set in Nigeria and feature as central characters two young men struggling to make sense of the disintegration and chaos happening in both their family and country. The two collections of stories that followed, Incidents at the Shrine (1986) and Stars of the New Curfew (1988), are set in Lagos and London.
In 1991 Okri was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Famished Road (1991). Set in a Nigerian village, this is the first in a trilogy of novels which tell the story of Azaro, a spirit child. Azaro's narrative is continued in Songs of Enchantment (1993) and Infinite Riches (1998). Other recent fiction includes Astonishing the Gods (1995) and Dangerous Love (1996), which was awarded the Premio Palmi (Italy) in 2000. His latest novels are In Arcadia (2002) and Starbook (2007).
A collection of poems, An African Elegy, was published in 1992, and an epic poem, Mental Flight, in 1999. A collection of essays, A Way of Being Free, was published in 1997. Ben Okri is also the author of a play, In Exilus.
In his latest book, Tales of Freedom (2009), Okri brings together poetry and story.
Ben Okri is a Vice-President of the English Centre of International PEN, a member of the board of the Royal National Theatre, and was awarded an OBE in 2001. He lives in London.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
July 28, 2019
5 "how does one review infinite perfection?!!" stars !
2015 Gold Award - tie (First Favorite Read)
I am at a loss.
I do not know what to write.
This book (like the first in the trilogy) is absolutely exquisite, moving and beyond comprehension.
Mr. Okri takes language and transforms it into a series of transcendental experiences.
Ben Okri is a high priest and shaman. He is able in an indefinable way to connect, overlap, merge our earthly plane with various alternate states of being in a way that is both profound and incredibly frightening. He writes of life in a Nigerian ghetto where the poverty and hardship is extreme but the connection to the divine is strong and almost symbiotic. One may start at any page in book one or two and read forwards or backwards or skip sections or read them twice or thrice and still be able to be absorbed into the mystery and magic of the prose. I do not understand how this is done but it is true.
Read this slowly let it seep into you:
"I watched the glorious stream of hierophants and invisible masters with their caravans of eternal delights, the floating pyramids of wisdom, their palaces of joy, their windows of infinity, their mirrors of lovely visions, their dragons of justice, their lions of the divine, their unicorns of mystery, their crowns of love-won illumination, their diamond scepters, their golden staffs, their hieratic standards and their shining thyrsi of magic ecstasy...."
Now imagine prose of this beauty on each and every page of this phenomenal novel and perhaps like me you will quiver with beautiful melancholy and know and I mean "know" that the divine is as far as simply squinting your eyes and looking into the moonlight, praying to your deity or making love to your beloved.
Like his first book this is an unbelievable achievement and his first book was my favorite book of 2013 and this book is likely going to be my book of 2015.
I am deeply grateful to Mr. Okri for continuing this spiritual and sensual saga.
2015 Gold Award - tie (First Favorite Read)
I am at a loss.
I do not know what to write.
This book (like the first in the trilogy) is absolutely exquisite, moving and beyond comprehension.
Mr. Okri takes language and transforms it into a series of transcendental experiences.
Ben Okri is a high priest and shaman. He is able in an indefinable way to connect, overlap, merge our earthly plane with various alternate states of being in a way that is both profound and incredibly frightening. He writes of life in a Nigerian ghetto where the poverty and hardship is extreme but the connection to the divine is strong and almost symbiotic. One may start at any page in book one or two and read forwards or backwards or skip sections or read them twice or thrice and still be able to be absorbed into the mystery and magic of the prose. I do not understand how this is done but it is true.
Read this slowly let it seep into you:
"I watched the glorious stream of hierophants and invisible masters with their caravans of eternal delights, the floating pyramids of wisdom, their palaces of joy, their windows of infinity, their mirrors of lovely visions, their dragons of justice, their lions of the divine, their unicorns of mystery, their crowns of love-won illumination, their diamond scepters, their golden staffs, their hieratic standards and their shining thyrsi of magic ecstasy...."
Now imagine prose of this beauty on each and every page of this phenomenal novel and perhaps like me you will quiver with beautiful melancholy and know and I mean "know" that the divine is as far as simply squinting your eyes and looking into the moonlight, praying to your deity or making love to your beloved.
Like his first book this is an unbelievable achievement and his first book was my favorite book of 2013 and this book is likely going to be my book of 2015.
I am deeply grateful to Mr. Okri for continuing this spiritual and sensual saga.
Read
June 14, 2017I read The Famished Road about 10 years ago, and finally got around to reading this fever dream of a follow-up. If you find Rushdie or Garcia Marquez to be tedious realists, then Okri is your guy -- there is fucking nothing resembling everyday reality here, even if it's kind of supposed to address Nigerian politics and social conditions. Really, mostly, it's people smoking butterflies in pipes and that sort of thing. I loved it, wildly surreal as it was, but it might be a bit too heady for a lot of readers.
April 4, 2016
Reading a Ben Okri book is quite an experience, I say it is an experience because there is no way that you can read the book and not get transported completely into his world. It is one of those books that will shift your perception of reality in a way that when you leave your house and go into the world you will keep expecting to find two moons in the sky or something weird like that. Somehow you will not be the same after you have read the book, granted it is fiction but I have found many truths that resonates with my spiritual reality. I believe for instance that I am a real life spirit child.
Songs of enchantment is a sequel to the Booker Prize-winning The Famished Road. I read the first book and I was hooked, I like the surreal world of the book, I like how he (Ben Okri) makes everything in life so romantic and so necessary to the evolution of human consciousness. I respect and love that Okri is one of those few authors who will respect the African traditional spirituality and would make the reader see it as something real as opposed to superstition, something that many African authors have a tendency to do.
The book chronicles the life and encounters of an Abiku (spirit child) called Azaro short for Lazarus, the boy who cheated death. Azaro is a spirit child who chose to live (spirit children are those children who don’t want to be born and are always trying to return back to the spirit world once they are born), he chose this world of poverty, corruption, political clashes over the sweet carefree life of the spirit realm. His curiosity and the love he has for his parents keep him here even though his spirit companions always try to lure him back with sweet delicate songs of the other world. In the mist of all all the poverty and the imperfections of this world, we get to enjoy the sometimes hilarious love story between Azaro's parents. Azaro's love for his parents and for life is a reminder to all of us of how precious life is and how it does not need to fit our idea of perfect for it to be worth the living. Ade, Azaro's friend and fellow spirit child says;
My destiny has been hidden away from me and it was because of all the poverty, all the suffering in the world, the wickedness and the lies, it was because of all this that I didn't want to live. But now I know that I was born to love the world as I find it. And to change it if I can.
Songs of enchantment tells a story of a world that is changing; spiritually, politically and physically and amid all this change we realise that all is intertwined and a change in one area effects a change in another. The book continues the clashes of the parties of the rich and poor (from the Famished road), the two parties are constantly fighting for dominance and party members by terrorizing the community by physical means as well as by using magic and sorcery; some of us can relate to this, I for one know that back in the day children used to disappear before elections only to resurface later, murdered and missing body parts.
Okri 's style reminds me a little bit of Haruki Murakami in that these authors will never ask for your permission to open up new worlds, new ways of thinking and different realities to you. This writer will make you believe that mystical gazzels sing in the bushes, it rains butterflies and an entire community becomes blind because the corpse of a dead man wants to be buried whilst at the same time tackling important issues such as poverty, corruption, war etc.
This book is worth a read and has made its way to my greatest reads list; but that is just me, the one with the heart of a spirit child.
Songs of enchantment is a sequel to the Booker Prize-winning The Famished Road. I read the first book and I was hooked, I like the surreal world of the book, I like how he (Ben Okri) makes everything in life so romantic and so necessary to the evolution of human consciousness. I respect and love that Okri is one of those few authors who will respect the African traditional spirituality and would make the reader see it as something real as opposed to superstition, something that many African authors have a tendency to do.
The book chronicles the life and encounters of an Abiku (spirit child) called Azaro short for Lazarus, the boy who cheated death. Azaro is a spirit child who chose to live (spirit children are those children who don’t want to be born and are always trying to return back to the spirit world once they are born), he chose this world of poverty, corruption, political clashes over the sweet carefree life of the spirit realm. His curiosity and the love he has for his parents keep him here even though his spirit companions always try to lure him back with sweet delicate songs of the other world. In the mist of all all the poverty and the imperfections of this world, we get to enjoy the sometimes hilarious love story between Azaro's parents. Azaro's love for his parents and for life is a reminder to all of us of how precious life is and how it does not need to fit our idea of perfect for it to be worth the living. Ade, Azaro's friend and fellow spirit child says;
My destiny has been hidden away from me and it was because of all the poverty, all the suffering in the world, the wickedness and the lies, it was because of all this that I didn't want to live. But now I know that I was born to love the world as I find it. And to change it if I can.
Songs of enchantment tells a story of a world that is changing; spiritually, politically and physically and amid all this change we realise that all is intertwined and a change in one area effects a change in another. The book continues the clashes of the parties of the rich and poor (from the Famished road), the two parties are constantly fighting for dominance and party members by terrorizing the community by physical means as well as by using magic and sorcery; some of us can relate to this, I for one know that back in the day children used to disappear before elections only to resurface later, murdered and missing body parts.
Okri 's style reminds me a little bit of Haruki Murakami in that these authors will never ask for your permission to open up new worlds, new ways of thinking and different realities to you. This writer will make you believe that mystical gazzels sing in the bushes, it rains butterflies and an entire community becomes blind because the corpse of a dead man wants to be buried whilst at the same time tackling important issues such as poverty, corruption, war etc.
This book is worth a read and has made its way to my greatest reads list; but that is just me, the one with the heart of a spirit child.
February 7, 2017
This is the second Book in the famished road trilogy. The difference between this Book and the previous one is first their one is shorter not like the first. This Book also is not as deep as the Famished road. In this Book, Azaro, the spirit child continues to narrate about how is father felt in love with the beggar girl and how Sami left with the money Black Tyga won on his last fight. Azaro also narrates about the death of his friend, Ade and his father. Ade was killed by Madame Koto's Car and his father was killed by political thugs. In short, this Book is rich of poetic language and a lot mysterious spiritual situations.
August 27, 2012
I had high expectations going into Songs of enchantment. Its predecessor was one of the best books I have ever read regardless of genre. Okri has an excellent command of language and it’s evident in this book, sadly this pales in comparison to 'Famished Road.' It’s a convoluted story that leaves a lot to be desired. Azaro often feels like a secondary character in a book where he’s supposed to be the main character. In fact this seems like the book is centered around his father who plays an integral part in this story.
I can’t imagine anyone who hasn’t read the previous book being able to make heads or tails of what is going on. There’s just too much coming at you from different angles. There are still some fascinating themes in songs of enchantment, I am just saddened its not a worthy successor to the excellent 'Famished Road.'
I can’t imagine anyone who hasn’t read the previous book being able to make heads or tails of what is going on. There’s just too much coming at you from different angles. There are still some fascinating themes in songs of enchantment, I am just saddened its not a worthy successor to the excellent 'Famished Road.'
June 3, 2017
I fell in love with Ben Okri’s Songs of Enchantment immediately as I flipped through it at a used bookstore. The copy I bought bears no indication that this is the second in a trilogy, and I had already begun reading before I did some research into Okri’s work. Even so, reading The Famished Road first is not necessary to understanding the sequel. In fact, I found greater satisfaction reading chapters out of order before committing to the book. I don’t think sequence is all that important to the novel, or even to the series.
True to its name, the book casts a spell. Azaro, the narrator, sees how the spirit world interacts with the human one. Through him, Okri tells a story of community, poverty, and politics in a rural African village, but does so in an epic, magical realist style. To that end, the book is worth experiencing for its perspective and for Okri’s mastery of dream, imagery, and metaphor. Because of the style, though, I often had a difficult time reading the book as a progression. Imagine trying to describe an abstract painting in concrete terms or looking at a circle as though it were a line. Regardless, by the end, I was eager to continue with the series. I think I will try the third book before the first. The story has greatly impacted my understanding of what is possible through narrative.
True to its name, the book casts a spell. Azaro, the narrator, sees how the spirit world interacts with the human one. Through him, Okri tells a story of community, poverty, and politics in a rural African village, but does so in an epic, magical realist style. To that end, the book is worth experiencing for its perspective and for Okri’s mastery of dream, imagery, and metaphor. Because of the style, though, I often had a difficult time reading the book as a progression. Imagine trying to describe an abstract painting in concrete terms or looking at a circle as though it were a line. Regardless, by the end, I was eager to continue with the series. I think I will try the third book before the first. The story has greatly impacted my understanding of what is possible through narrative.
April 2, 2020
Pullulating with a mix of strange magnetism of spirited wonder and adventure; great discoveries and self-exploration; the strange and the surreal; the uplifting and the mundane; lthe liminal and the fundamental, defined by love and hate, order and chaos, the personal and the collective... A story wheren people leak into one anothers' dreams and dreams leak into reality; where humble homes turn into wild forests and wild forests breeze comfort; where man is an animal and animal shares man's great burden of living.
Magic realism at its best in Ben Okri's Songs of Enchantment. .
Magic realism at its best in Ben Okri's Songs of Enchantment. .
February 27, 2023
This felt like a desperate attempt at trying to mimic the magic that the first book had but the author somehow couldn't do it anymore
Want to read
November 9, 2018Heh, did not realise there is even a second book. Oh lordy, more magical realism I suppose...
December 23, 2016
Let me begin by saying I did not choose this book. It was a gift. Nevertheless, I stopped reading on page 110. I've done this, at most, half a dozen times over hundreds of books going back to the 1960s. Yes, this is the much lauded sequel to the 1991 Booker Prize winning "The Famished Road," (which I haven't read) and I appreciate the difficulty the writer faced in trying to tell what seems to be a story of the destructive collision of the modern world on a traditional Nigerian community and its politics, told through the eyes of a young boy who, like a shaman, sees visions alternately mysterious and horrific. And though I do not dislike magic realism and have enjoyed other books about distant cultures, I found the writer's prose as impenetrable as the mysteries facing the central character, this "spirit child," Azaro, and the forest that surrounds the village where he lives with his mother and father. This was unfortunate because in the first 70 pages I was mostly enjoying a lyrical story of a young boy trying to make sense of the forces that lashed his world -his day-laborer father's drinking and frustration with life, his peddler mother's never-ending labor, the emotional divorce of mother from father, the violence resulting from the collision of politics and poverty, the hypocrisies of "nation-building", and over it all the question of what it means to live virtuously. But I was following that story despite prose passages that finally overcame the pleasure of the story. Let me illustrate. I will create a paragraph out of sentences chosen at random. That sounds ridiculous, but it represents what trying to follow the narrative track finally became, and why I put the book down in frustration.
"I felt disembodied forms jostling me, whispering numinous words into the pores of my body, as if all my pores were undiscovered ears. `The peacock is a witch,' I cried, knocking it away. She said that some of the spirits had diamond spears, some held aloft books that quivered with emerald lights, and one of them, a child, bore a golden tablet of rock on which had been inscribed certain forgotten laws of life. During all this Madame Koto had become ever more remote. The sky split open. I saw fishes swimming in the cracks. Then a cool mysterious breeze blew across my face. The original man-woman had disappeared into its hybridous offspring. A curious sand-hot wind blasted my mind. The enigma was a white horse standing near the door of the bar. A cat ran out of the bushes and leapt across my face."
Trying to make sense of that mish-mash was what reading the book finally became. I kept asking myself if the tangled images were metaphors or merely descriptive of events actually happening. When a text becomes hallucinatory, like listening to a madman's tale, eventually you turn away. Other readers may have found a way through. I came to feel just like Azaro, lost in the woods and beset by phantasms.
None of the characters did anything but annoy me. I stopped halfway through, which I rarely do with a book.
"I felt disembodied forms jostling me, whispering numinous words into the pores of my body, as if all my pores were undiscovered ears. `The peacock is a witch,' I cried, knocking it away. She said that some of the spirits had diamond spears, some held aloft books that quivered with emerald lights, and one of them, a child, bore a golden tablet of rock on which had been inscribed certain forgotten laws of life. During all this Madame Koto had become ever more remote. The sky split open. I saw fishes swimming in the cracks. Then a cool mysterious breeze blew across my face. The original man-woman had disappeared into its hybridous offspring. A curious sand-hot wind blasted my mind. The enigma was a white horse standing near the door of the bar. A cat ran out of the bushes and leapt across my face."
Trying to make sense of that mish-mash was what reading the book finally became. I kept asking myself if the tangled images were metaphors or merely descriptive of events actually happening. When a text becomes hallucinatory, like listening to a madman's tale, eventually you turn away. Other readers may have found a way through. I came to feel just like Azaro, lost in the woods and beset by phantasms.
None of the characters did anything but annoy me. I stopped halfway through, which I rarely do with a book.
September 10, 2013
Before I read this book, I saw a review describing it as Okri smoking a bag of weed before writing. I disagree.
I think he was actually standing on his head WHILST under the influence of weed!
Wasn't sure where I was; fantasy and real life just blended. Was interesting at first. Got terribly tiring after a while. I had to skip pages.
I think he was actually standing on his head WHILST under the influence of weed!
Wasn't sure where I was; fantasy and real life just blended. Was interesting at first. Got terribly tiring after a while. I had to skip pages.
November 5, 2008
Ben Okri develops the young boy and his village in Nigeria even further. Okri's work is very multi-layered with dreams, politics and daily survival.
October 6, 2020
Liked it but bit too fever dreamy in parts
Read
February 13, 2009Brilliant colorful poetry. changed my life.
July 3, 2023
The first book in the trilogy ‘The Famished Road’ (originally released in 1991) was my favourite book of 2023.
The sequel, ‘Songs of Enchantment’, which came out in 1993, continues the story of impoverished Nigerian boy Azaro and his family and picks up almost immediately from the exhilarating finale of ‘The Famished Road.’
The original Matrix film was a fantastic balanced story with depth and the sequels expanded on the original action sequences, ground-breaking choreography and innovative camera technology (remember bullet time?).
The sequels went all-in on maximising the power of what made the original groundbreaking. This book does much the same but maximises the poetic artistry, dream narratives, spiritual imagery and collective unconscious of the characters, book and the world. Remember “everything is connected.”
The line between the spirit world and real life is blurred much more in this book. Which makes for an intoxicating mix of calamity and disorientation. At times the antics of Azaro and his father reminded me of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza crossed with Fear and Loathing. Black Tyger is a tragic figure, often portrayed as a wild mad-man his action can definitely be considered quixotic at times, however his character is always showing heart and fighting for the needs of others, opposing the political powers and corruption which feeds off the poor and weak to sate itself and and perpetuate the pestilential procession of political propaganda preying on the poor.
The book still tackles massive themes of power, wealth, inequality and spirituality. In particular the political masquerade is a very clever metaphor which manifests itself in the story as a powerful spirit dragon of the political party and wreaks terror on the town.
The story makes the case that constant upheaval and conflict is beneficial for the wealthy and powerful in order to maintain their position of power and exploit the weak, like an ouroboros constantly devouring itself. Because the empowering alternative of peace, Union and stability wouldn’t earn them the vast amounts of monies needed to satisfy their appetite and demand for more.
The trilogy deals with Azaro’s tragically poor family. His father does all that he can and often has prescient insights into their situation in life.
It cannot be overstated how fantastically enjoyable Ben Okri’s prose is to read. It’s at times when the Nigerian author juxtaposes the the horrible real life events with the spirit world, where the prose and characters transcend their Earthly bodies and reality, that the beauty and poetic artistry of Okri shines.
The beauty of the prose which takes on a completely abstract and metaphorical form at times reflects the inner (hidden) spiritual experience which is where our characters experience their epiphanies and realise the futility of the human experience and become connected and in Union with their people past and present who are kept from doing so in real life by the constant threats and violence of the political oppressors.
Dreams are powerful and this book is all about how dreams form, how they intersect with the dreams of those around us and take on a life of their own and how they can materialise in the real world and effect change for better or worse.
The sequel, ‘Songs of Enchantment’, which came out in 1993, continues the story of impoverished Nigerian boy Azaro and his family and picks up almost immediately from the exhilarating finale of ‘The Famished Road.’
The original Matrix film was a fantastic balanced story with depth and the sequels expanded on the original action sequences, ground-breaking choreography and innovative camera technology (remember bullet time?).
The sequels went all-in on maximising the power of what made the original groundbreaking. This book does much the same but maximises the poetic artistry, dream narratives, spiritual imagery and collective unconscious of the characters, book and the world. Remember “everything is connected.”
The line between the spirit world and real life is blurred much more in this book. Which makes for an intoxicating mix of calamity and disorientation. At times the antics of Azaro and his father reminded me of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza crossed with Fear and Loathing. Black Tyger is a tragic figure, often portrayed as a wild mad-man his action can definitely be considered quixotic at times, however his character is always showing heart and fighting for the needs of others, opposing the political powers and corruption which feeds off the poor and weak to sate itself and and perpetuate the pestilential procession of political propaganda preying on the poor.
The book still tackles massive themes of power, wealth, inequality and spirituality. In particular the political masquerade is a very clever metaphor which manifests itself in the story as a powerful spirit dragon of the political party and wreaks terror on the town.
The story makes the case that constant upheaval and conflict is beneficial for the wealthy and powerful in order to maintain their position of power and exploit the weak, like an ouroboros constantly devouring itself. Because the empowering alternative of peace, Union and stability wouldn’t earn them the vast amounts of monies needed to satisfy their appetite and demand for more.
The trilogy deals with Azaro’s tragically poor family. His father does all that he can and often has prescient insights into their situation in life.
It cannot be overstated how fantastically enjoyable Ben Okri’s prose is to read. It’s at times when the Nigerian author juxtaposes the the horrible real life events with the spirit world, where the prose and characters transcend their Earthly bodies and reality, that the beauty and poetic artistry of Okri shines.
The beauty of the prose which takes on a completely abstract and metaphorical form at times reflects the inner (hidden) spiritual experience which is where our characters experience their epiphanies and realise the futility of the human experience and become connected and in Union with their people past and present who are kept from doing so in real life by the constant threats and violence of the political oppressors.
Dreams are powerful and this book is all about how dreams form, how they intersect with the dreams of those around us and take on a life of their own and how they can materialise in the real world and effect change for better or worse.
August 23, 2021
That’s rarely happens that I drop the book in the middle of it and perhaps it’s the first time I dropped it even earlier. Trust me, I was really trying hard to like it, making sense of hectic rambles of words mixed together without any meaning to me. Perhaps there is some hidden political message which autor could not express freely? Or some idea which needs to be understood only by people with some sort of experience or level of enlightenment? Perhaps one day I am going to get it, but I gave it up today as total waste of time in life in trying to make sense of it.
If you manages to get through and even liked it (can not even imagine such fact right now), appreciate your insights on this totally lost book to me
If you manages to get through and even liked it (can not even imagine such fact right now), appreciate your insights on this totally lost book to me
March 26, 2023
I read The Famished Road and was astonished at the beauty and originality. This book was different. It was more like a dream that I entered and exited. I loved so much of it, but I was lost at times as I am sometimes in dreams. I look forward to reading the last book in the trilogy. Madame Koto is a character perhaps as or more iconic than Madame Defarge. I never thought I’d say that. Read these books.
August 22, 2021
Songs of Enchantment begins exactly where The Famished Road left off, continuing Okri's fantastical imagery and exploration of life in postcolonial Nigeria. He has no patience for realism in this volume and, whereas the first in the trilogy started out with roots in the real world, in this one the Spirit World has become so entwined with the material one, there is not much realism left. The book is divided into several fever-dream like episodes, striking for their imagery and symbolism. Ben Okri has a gift for describing the beautiful, the bizarre, and the grotesque.
Despite the other-worldly events and imagery, the novel still features thoughtful insights into human relationships and mortality, as Spirit Child Azaro navigates the ups and downs of his parents' relationship, and the whole town has to reckon with the death of a few of its members. Okri's telling of these stories is surreal, but his insights are inherently human.
The book has a few flaws. It doesn't stand alone, feeling like a central chunk of a novel that (including the third book in the trilogy) could be 1000+ pages. The fact we are looking at this through the eyes of a child is not as prominent here, and Azaro feels more like a generic first person narrator.
Despite the other-worldly events and imagery, the novel still features thoughtful insights into human relationships and mortality, as Spirit Child Azaro navigates the ups and downs of his parents' relationship, and the whole town has to reckon with the death of a few of its members. Okri's telling of these stories is surreal, but his insights are inherently human.
The book has a few flaws. It doesn't stand alone, feeling like a central chunk of a novel that (including the third book in the trilogy) could be 1000+ pages. The fact we are looking at this through the eyes of a child is not as prominent here, and Azaro feels more like a generic first person narrator.
February 24, 2022
This is more like a book of poetry than a novel. Or an acid trip. Or like a bit of the bible; Revelations comes to mind. No real antagonist even if Madame Koto is somewhat of an evil presence. Not much of a plot. Some parts were engaging but it was mainly hard work. If you want to get lost in imagery, maybe read it. If you’re looking for a story, I’d avoid it 5/10
September 27, 2022
La forma de escribir es muy bonita y las figuras fantásticas y animistas son originales, pero la trama la verdad que me ha dejado bastante fría... Acabo de terminar el libro y no soy capaz de decir de qué trata o qué pasa en él.
Probaré con otros libros de Okri a ver si hay más suerte...
Probaré con otros libros de Okri a ver si hay más suerte...
May 30, 2017
Ben Okri's writing is up there with my favourites, profound and poetic.
December 9, 2017
Colour me enchanted.
July 5, 2018
Reduced in length until its now about as long as the original should have been but its also severely reduced the plot and instead left the endless and mostly boring hallucinatory scenes
August 5, 2019
It gives life lesson which enlights our soul and thoughts.
September 29, 2019
I love this book some much. If Africa can used this source of power n get things done then the start is here. Songs of enchantment.
July 5, 2020
I loved the writing. A magical book, sensual, mysterious.
May 21, 2021
Perfect
February 10, 2023
Not for me really
July 1, 2023
Hard to review because there wasn’t much in terms of form, but the writing was beautiful and sometimes relaxing.
March 7, 2017
Absolument grandiose. Cet ouvrage est à la fois merveilleux et poignant. C'est un bonheur à lire, et aussi bon que le premier tome. Sans connaître l'Afrique, nous plongeons grâce à l'auteur au sein des mythes, légendes et croyances locales. un livre fantastique et enrichissant.
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