#65: Èkó Ilé!
A Review of Toni Kan's The Carnivorous City
If ever there was a setting that could be a character in a novel, Toni Kan’s The Carnivorous City tops the list. Abel Dike arrives in Lagos to investigate the disappearance of his brother, Soni. Thrust from his simple lifestyle in Asaba into a world of mysterious wealth, colourful characters, lust, and corruption, he soon trades his modesty for the glamour of his brother’s world.
Greetings, once again dear reader👋🏽👋🏽
I hope you are doing well and taking good care of yourself.
Welcome to another edition of this spectacular newsletter.
Today’s newsletter is a guest feature by Doyin, a lover of all things art-literature, music, paintings, and movies. You can mostly find him reading, writing, or daydreaming about the Corleone family. He's addicted to cakes, books, and suits. He writes from Lagos and tweets @AjayiAdedoyin14
As Abel weaves his way in and out of his brother’s dealings, he battles a growing attraction to Ada, his brother’s beautiful wife. He encounters myriad characters and quickly discovers that trust in Lagos is a commodity that is loyal only to the scent of money, as he comes face-to-face with the senseless violence waiting to erupt in the streets of Lagos. The story tells itself through its characters.
Ada also finds herself drawn to her husband’s brother. They inevitably find comfort in each other’s arms as they accept that Soni had been devoured by the ‘beast with bared fangs and a voracious appetite for flesh.’
“Yet, like crazed moths disdaining the rage of the flame, we keep gravitating towards Lagos, compelled by some centrifugal force that defies reason and willpower. We come, take our chances, hoping that we will be luckier than the next man, willing ourselves to believe that while our fortune lies here, the myriad evils that traverse the streets of Lagos will never meet us with bared fangs.”
Lagos lives up to Kan’s billing as a ‘carnivorous city.’ The characters are clothed in different skins, but they are alike in their fondness for hustle. Abel meets Dr. Nicole, Santos, Mayowa and other people with unhealthy cravings for wealth, who all use wily schemes, guile, and even open threats to satiate their lust.
In this book, ‘Lagos’ represents a baptism, a christening of some sort. Characters are plunged into the thrilling lifestyle and are born anew as fresh people, like snakes shedding their skins. Soni, for example, arrived in Lagos as Sunderland ‘Soni’ Dike, but upon attaining the status of a ‘Lagos Big Boy,’ took the name Rabato Sabato. Soni’s lifestyle is emblematic of Lagos’ paradox – an open yet mysterious city. His disappearance and presumed death are as mysterious as his source of wealth.
Abel’s awakening is less obvious, unlike Soni choosing a new name. He arrives in Lagos as a mild-mannered, unassuming man content with the simple pleasures he can afford – food, novels, clothes ‘that would fit in a small box,’ beer, and sex, but a whiff of the heady Lagos atmosphere, thick with crime, corruption, lust, wealth, and power unmasks a different side of him and unearths desires he grapples with.
“It was a strange feeling being in charge of all that money and being in control of it. Stranger still was being able to spend hundreds of thousands in one day and not wake up in the middle of the night terrified that you had done something stupid to imperil yourself.”
Toni Kan does a fine job of painting the melting pot that is Lagos in all its sights, sounds, and smells. His writing style is the breezy and confident, the sure-handed scrawl of a man extremely familiar with the city. He understands the ‘make-it-or-die-trying’ garb that cloaks Lagosians, as shows that to the readers in the characters and actions of Soni, Mayowa, Dr Nicole, and Santos. He is well acquainted with the madness sitting on a hairpin trigger, and understands the ways of the police, the wiles of hustlers and street boys, and the minds of elaborate corporate workers.
“‘Bros, corruption is another name for Lagos…Nobody come Lagos to count bridge. You help me, I help you – everyone happy.’”
Being a lifelong Lagosian, I saw a familiarity in many of Kan’s characters, their actions, and of course, that senseless violence that erupts without warning in the more notorious parts of Lagos. Only in a few novels have I seen the setting take a life of its own, almost a character in itself. One begs the question: does Lagos create the characters, or do the characters make the city? Or are they one and the same?
This novel, along with Kan’s collection of short stories Night of the Creaking Bed are works that depict everyday life in Lagos and the heart of a Lagosian. Other novels that pay homage to the city are works of the famed author, Cyprian Ekwensi: Jagua Nana and People of the City.
The Carnivorous City is a book that lingers in your mind after you’ve put it down, just like a first-timer’s experience with the city of Lagos itself.
Have you read this book? What did you think about it? Leave a comment, maybe? 😊
#64: Me & You No Dey The Same Category
Dreaming of Ways to Understand You is a collection of fifteen short stories exploring the complexities of human relationships. It is written from the perspective of individuals navigating relevant social issues as they make sense of their own lives, and focuses on themes of mental health, sexuality, body positivity and domestic violence, amongst others.
 | A guest post by
|