Helon Habila is an interesting writer – of short stories.
With the short story as a canvas, he takes his work ethic, mixes
it up with his excellent powers of observation of the human condition
and finishes up his patented recipe with a delicious dollop of
prose poetry. With the short story Habila struts his stuff, gently
telling complex truths with the aid of simple enchanting prose.
Unfortunately, the novel as a medium of expression undermines
Habila's strengths and exaggerates his weaknesses. Clearly, making
the transition from the short story to the novel, in my view,
has been problematic for him. I have bought both books that he
has written – Waiting for an Angel, and Measuring Time.
I am yet to finish reading Waiting for an Angel. Instead of chapters
it is organized in chunky sections and each section reads like
a good short story that yearns to be completed. The book in sum
reads like a short
story stretched too far. In the novels, truths that seemed profound
in his short stories morph into overwrought banalities buried
in way too many words. The analogy that comes to mind when thinking
of these two novels is that some vehicles should never become
stretch
limousines.
In Measuring Time, we follow the fortunes and misfortunes of
a set of twins – the scholarly but sickly Mamo and the soldier
of fortune LaMamo and in so doing we peek through the window of
Nigeria's dwindling lights. Their mother dies during their birth
and their father Lamang turns out to be one emotionally absent
father. The twins are left to fend for themselves with the aid
of extended family members. LaMamo and Mamo are separated early
in the book as LaMamo sets forth to join a mercenary group. Mamo
stays behind in the village to ruminate on the meaning of history
and to write autobiographies, most notably of the Mai or chief
of the village of Keti (the Mai is expecting a hagiography but
the idealist in Mamo would not oblige). LaMamo and Mamo connect
through the distance with long letters from LaMamo. The writing
in the letters reminds the reader of the contrived English that
seems to be the rage these days thanks to Uzodinma Iweala's relentless
(exasperating, I might add) use of that technique in his books.
My opinion is that the technique fails to deliver in Measuring
Time.
So why read the book? Measuring Time does grow on the reader,
slowly but surely. Reading the book was aworthwhile, albeit frustrating
exercise. The book does dip its many toes into too many issues
and flees without any serious attempt at in-depth analysis. Habila's
technique seems to be to slyly force the reader to think about
these things, and in the process, force the reader to do the research.
If that succeeds in awakening a consciousness in the reader, then
Habila's experiment has been successful. This reader will never
know. For me, it was hard to focus on the myriad issues in the
book, thanks to an avalanche of clichéd, uneven prose and
dialogue zigzaging between American conversational English and
English as is spoken in Nigeria. And I found the book's editing
to be mediocre, with the occasional word used inappropriately.
The wooden prose may have been as a result of over-editing. I'll
never know. My first experience with chapters that are not numbered
was with Wole Soyinka's You Must Set Forth at Dawn. I did not
like it then and I don't like it that Habila adopts the same technique
in his books. Annoying, especially since each chapter reminds
me of an unfinished short story. 
Comments?
