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 Sharon of The Lemonade Journal.
Set in Akure, The Fishermen tells the story of four adventurous boys. This book was intense, I won't lie. From all the deaths that occurred to how the author made sure to give a detailed description of each one, it felt like he was hell-bent on scarring his readers.
Fortunately, I had just finished reading an equally jarring book so I was already somewhat desensitized. I didn't cry but I was disgusted and horrified. (What do you mean they drank from the same well Boja had drowned for four days? That's disgusting!! 🤢)
I appreciate the fact that the book was set in my city, Akure, which is weird because you hardly read books that talk about such places, talk less about setting the whole event there.
Let's get into the characters, starting with Ikenna, who was described as the Python. If you ask me, I'd say there was more than one madman in this story and one's madness was a result of the other. Abulu, the original madman, drove Ikenna to madness with his words the day he 'prophesied' his death.
I see Ikenna as a stubborn goat. He already made his conclusions about what and who will kill him, never listening to his mother's pleas or his brothers’ endless promise of their love for him. There was no saving him after he heard that prophesy, which actually sounded more like a hypnosis of some sort.
The third madman in this story is Boja, the Fungus, the boy with the funny name. He let Ike drive him mad to the extent of killing his own brother. When they fought, it looked like the blind leading the blind. Even if his brother was scared after hearing a prophecy about his death, he could have been more reasonable.
“…do you not know that there is nothing the eye can see that can make it shed the tears of blood? Do you not know that there is no loss we cannot overcome?”
This whole story reminds me of the prophet in the Bible who cursed children who laughed at him and they all got devoured by wild animals. I say this because despite the author trying to maneuver the spotlight to Abulu the madman, I can't help but think about how the prophet in the celestial church was significant.
All their troubles started after he came to warn them about the Omi Ala and they laughed at him. I'm trying to find a reason because how could one prophecy from a madman ruin a whole family, leading to a cycle of madmen.
The fourth madman in this story, Obembe, was driven mad by his thirst for revenge for his brother’s death, which was unnecessary, by the way. The fact that they were so close to leaving the country made it more painful. Despite Ben's pleas, his mind was so clouded with rage and revenge that he couldn't see what was in front of him. Not even when that thing was Canada.
Lastly, the actual madman, Abulu. In my opinion, he was actually insane but he had moments of sanity; because how can a madman walk into a church to mourn a boy, whose death he prophesied?
Abulu's death was the most gruesome murder in this book. I mean he was stabbed with hooks. Hooks??? As in they kept pulling it out of him. I don't even want to imagine it. Also, the part where he raped the dead woman, and his mother (incest and necrophilia??? Someone please check on this author!!)
The other characters—the mother and father. I'd like to state that the dynamics of their relationship were very weird. At the beginning of the book, they seemed like the typical Igbo family where the mother's voice must not be heard and all that.
However, later on, the support Mr. Agwu showed for his wife when she was temporarily insane due to the loss of their children was commendable. Although he is still to blame, to some extent, because had he been around, Ikenna and Boja would have had something holding them back from tearing at each other's throats. That was in part not his fault, though, as the author later explained.
The last character I'd like to talk about is Benjamin, the moth who, frankly, is the only sane character in this book. Although he did not mourn the loss of his brothers, he did not let the rage of revenge consume him completely.
This book reveals how fragile the human mind is; one meaningful event resulted in a spiral of events that claimed lives and delayed another. The horror aside, the author addressed some of the gruesome events that happened in the city after MKO Abiola's murder. An event that I (regretfully) haven't ever thought about doing further research into, and which has caught my interest thanks to the book.
Despite that, I find some parts of the book insignificant to the story. Insignificant details and parts made it a tedious read. For instance, the author going into the details of Abulu’s escapades and atrocities. This may have been significant to the story in a way I didn't see but… it was unnecessary to me.
The end of this story is rather ambiguous, leaving the reader with many questions. For one, did Ben actually see Obembe beside the fence, or was it an apparition? We'd never know. I rate this book a 7/10 and suggest that there’s an age restriction on it, for obvious reasons.
Thank you for reading. Bye.
Have you read this book? What did you think about it? Kindly leave a comment.
If you read this book after reading this review, do come back and share 😊