140718: this is read 3 times. this is the book that made his name. it has been translated but i do not know how: a lot of the pleasure is in the voice, the unique version of Nigerian english used, perhaps proving that you cannot fail to make poetry when you use english (beckett). i had read some Tutuola before this [book:Pauper, Brawler, and Slanderer|434922], i was not surprised, but all the invented and fantastic adventures are what could be translations of typical oral tales he had learned from his grandmother and others then written down...
i have now read more litcrit on Tutuola [book:World Authors Series - Amos Tutuola Revisited|434925], and this deepens my fascination, if only in aspects that might just entertain the reader, that give further sense of the 'bad grammar' contention (as litcrit sometimes notes t is free of language and common english ‘poetics’ but not so extreme as joyce) and examines his work, his use of common yoruba tales is not 'copying’ but how spoken english is rendered more in yoruba grammar, and this book can be seen as no less original than say western riffs on hellenic myths and later maybe modern insistence on using the 'oedipus complex'...