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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.