Flipping Through Pages #17 - Tail of the Blue Bird (A Book Review)

'That may be your story. I am not the one to tell you what is true. I am telling you a story. On this earth, we have to choose the story we tell, because it affects us - it affects how we live.” 

I was going through a random list of African books in hope of finding a new treasure when suddenly I came across a beautiful book with a clever pun for a title.

A poetry veteran, Nii Parkes is a child of two worlds – Ghana and UK. So one of the first thing that will strike you would be that the language may be in English but it has an unique flavour to it, with mysterious words and phrases. Through a familiar tongue, Nii lets you into a magical world where hunter and nature exist in harmony and balance.

And then comes Death.

Nii starts off the novel with almost a lyrical majesty as a long time hunter regales us with his story, leading into the pivotal moment when an outsider brings to notice the remains of what may have once been human. Is it murder? Is it black magic?

I loved how the instigating event itself is so ambiguous. As if the audience has discovered something strange, and the world must find a way to react to it. And react it does, with Kayo, the young forensic prodigy entering the picture in a mix of reluctance and attraction.

Kayo is a wonderful entry, since you can see that he is channelling the author’s own viewpoint of being a child of two worlds, one seeped in concrete buildings and the other is sunlight canopies. Forced into the case, Kayo observes a beautiful reverence to this new domain even as he keeps his beliefs that science will always prevail.

And then it doesn’t.

For this is not a murder mystery as it might have been. Instead it is about understanding cultural markers, believing the good in everything, surrendering to the circle of life. This novel becomes a canvas of ethnological beauty and disgust - and through it, Nii gives us something breathtaking.

If you come for answers though, you will find there are none. Only the thoughts that occupy your mindspace as like Kayo you ponder, some real truths are beyond the realms of logic.

So, I give it 9 out of 10.

+The writing contains a lyrical majestry

+Folklore like characters are beautifully constructed in serving the plot even as they revel as themselves

+Creates a wonderful ethnological case

-Difficult to absorb easily due to the language liberty taken