The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives
By Lola Shoneyin
245pp; Cassava Republic Press
Lola Shoneyin’s debut novel, ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives’ offers a critical look at the Nigerian polygamous household. And quite like Abimbola Adunni Adelakun’s ‘Under the Brown Rusted Roof’, the novel bares the age-old matrimonial arrangement - warts and all.
‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives’ is told in an alternation of first person narratives and the third person omniscient observer, which very deftly elevates the theme and chronology of the narrative.
The novel chronicles the marital life of Bolanle and the challenges she faces as the youngest and educated wife of Baba Segi’s four wives. It explores the psychological metamorphosis of Bolanle, in the midst of rivals who are made insecure by the same qualities that charm their husband.
Bolanle displays an unsettling naivety even when confronted with threats such as poisoning. The one-up Bolanle’s co-wives can boast is their fecundity, and they use it well; as after two years, Bolanle’s belly remains “as flat as a pauper’s footstool.”
This underachievement in the sight of her husband and his wives ensures that her place in her husband’s house remains insecure. And the significance of this is illustrated with the analogy of the armchairs. Bolanle is denied having her own armchair in the family living room, until she is swollen with child.
However, Bolanle does eventually fulfil the prediction of her senior wives; she turns out to be a harbinger of misfortune in a house which before her time had breathed deep of untold secrets and a traditional understanding.
One quality that sets ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives’ above many novels of its ilk is the voice and language Shoneyin adopts - one rarely used by Nigerian authors. Weaving a tapestry from different points of view, the plot unfolds; equally employing an almost verbatim transliteration of traditional Yoruba expressions like Iya tope’s description of her daughters: “They have eyes in their stomachs”, which translates in Yoruba parlance as ‘Oju Inu’ (perceptiveness).
Shoneyin also exhibites dexterity in striking a balance in character development. Though the novel is based on the experiences of Bolanle, the other characters are given an equal voice, which makes them no less valuable to the plot.
The author displays a willingness to explore some thought provoking ideas such as the dual existence of good and evil in the same being. Babe Segi is both a rogue and a knight. He is quick to point Bolanle out as “the barren wife” but just as quick to be philosophical in his disappointment: “When you buy guavas, you cannot open every single one for rottenness. And where you find rottenness you do not always throw the guava away; you bite around the rot and hope it will quench your craving.”
However, what the novel enjoys in structure it lacks in vocabulary application, as the author in a slightly pedantic manner employs elevated vocabulary where only the basic is needed. If Shoneyin had maintained a third person narrative the following statement may have been appropriate “What would Teacher say, If he saw me here heaving like a pursued duiker?” Problem is, Shoneyin wrote this statement while adopting the voice of Baba Segi, an uneducated businessman living in a semi rural town.
The work ‘duiker’, which means antelope, is unfamiliar at best in an African setting, even to the educated. Many such language inconsistencies freckle Shoneyin’s narrative. One gets the impression that the novel is set in an earlier time; therefore, it is also rather anachronistic that Iya Femi cites Bantu, a contemporary African musician. The author seems irrevocably caught between a pastoral imagination and foreign civilisation.
Shoneyin makes suggestions and allows the reader’s imagination to run riot without subsequent guidance. One major cop-out is the implied lesbianism of Iya Segi. Readers are led down an intriguing route when they read Iya Segi: “I could not stop looking at her – everything about her fascinated me. I was awash with lust.” But the author declines to pursue this, Shoneyin missing the opportunity to widen the novel’s plot and make it less predictable.
Despite attempts to create an emotive personality in Bolanle, one cannot summon empathy for her because she is not real. Everything about her character seems fictional - her unrelenting naivety, her fascination with unusual crockery, the drawn-out effect of a childhood ordeal and her choice of a spouse. Bolanle fails to resonate; and quite frankly, save for a few characters; the Alao family is a house of misfits.
Baba Segi is perhaps the most rounded and intriguing character of the novel. We get to know him better than we do any of his wives. And rather than fault his decision at the novel’s conclusion, we applaud it because we know and appreciate his personality. It is such descriptions as the following that make him so: “Baba Segi was open ended, he could never keep things in. his senses were connected to his gut and anything that did not agree with him had a way of speeding up his digestive system. Bad smells, bad news and the sight of anything repulsive had an immediate expulsive effect: what went in through his mouth recently shot out through his mouth, and what had settled in sped through his intestines and out of his rear end.”
The conclusion is one of the best parts of the novel though a few loose ends remain in the exploration of the wives’s long-held secrets and the emotions behind them. One had also hoped that Iya Tope would evolve in the household beyond a single outburst.
Nonetheless, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives is a book which elucidates the intricacies inherent in the typical polygamous Nigerian home. And the wonderful use of language and grammar, save for a few editing oversights, ensure that it is an enjoyable read. Lola Shoneyin possesses a strong adventurous voice and is representative of the new crop of female writers who will undoubtedly play an important part in promoting Nigerian literature.
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