The Perfect Nine is the perfect epic poem to read if you are
starting to read about African folklore or are already well acquainted with it.
From what I understood about it from the author's introduction, it's an important part of Kenyan folklore as it is a story about the origin of their
people and that is often one of the best ways to garner an understanding of a
culture, especially one you are unfamiliar with.
The story goes as it says on the blurb - ninety-nine suitors
arrive asking for the hand of Gikuyu and Mumbi's famously beautiful daughters
known as the Perfect Nine; their daughters are asked to wisely choose which of
the ninety-nine suitors to marry. They are also tasked to go on a journey with
the Perfect Nine to find the cure for their youngest sister who has never been
able to walk. With each obstacle, the number of suitors reduces, some by
choice, others not.
As we know that the Nine daughters are matriarchs of Kenya's
clans, there's no surprise where the story goes. But some stories are not about
knowing the end - they are about the journey. The quest in itself does not
start until almost halfway through the book, but you're still left in
anticipation wanting to know exactly how the next step in the story is going to
happen, how our heroines will approach the next problem. And they are heroines.
The story may be about each daughter getting married and having children by the
end but they choose to do so and choose whom to do it with. These daughters are
shown to be equal to men, to never have been treated as lesser or incapable of
certain skills and tasks. It's the kind of feminist folktale that has always
been around but a lot of Western media fails to understand how easy a story
like this one is.
The story is mostly told by an omniscient third-person
narrator but changes during the quest to being from the first-person
perspective of one of the daughters. And I think that part was my favourite,
not because it was the main event of the story but because of the way it is
spoken. It is the way a child would talk to their parents as a grown adult, the
way they would tell their parents about something that has happened in their
life and recounting how things they were taught as a child rang true in those
moments. It was a thank you to their mother and father, Mumbi and Gikuyu
respectively, for what they had taught them and how it had made them strong and
wise adults.
The details in the story were so beautifully weaved. Everything was so peaceful and calming, there is something about the book that settles something inside you. And I personally would put that down to the author translating the work himself. There is a lot that can get lost in translation when a work is being translated between two languages and at least by doing it himself, the author can get the truest meaning possible into the English version. I would love to hear it someday being told in its original tongue even if I can't understand it because I could tell from the format that the original text has a rhythm that cannot translate to English.
- Good starting point into African folklore
- Interest in creation mythology
- The vivid imagery of things both real and mystical
- Epic poetry for any kind of reader, even if it's not what you would usually read
Comments
Post a Comment