When Chaos Is the God of an Era

Rediscovering an Axis Mundi in Ben Okri's Starbook (2007)

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9250384
AutoresRosemary Gray (0000-0002-6583-4319, autor de correspondencia), Gray Gray
Año2013
Volumen44
Número1
Páginas128
Fecha de publicación2013-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaResearch in African Literatures (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0034-5210 • E-ISSN: 1527-2044
EditorialIndiana University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.2979/reseafrilite.44.1.128
OpenAlexW2003026918
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas7

The article begins by contextualizing Ben Okri’s concept of reality within a traditional, cultural framework. A brief discussion of the trajectory of African writing and the standard classifications of the mode of the Okri oeuvre as either non-realist or magical realism follows. The argument challenges both appellations in light of a fairly recent interview with the author (London, 16 February 2011) in which Okri redefines “reality” in terms of an animistic full keyboard of life. The stance of the article ultimately eschews classification of a paradise lost and regained, thus avoiding any classification that might contradict the mercurial “unfoldment” (the birth of ideas coming forth from the mind) of the spirit in Starbook (2007). This article proceeds to provide the rationale for the title chosen by quoting from both Okri’s Stars of the New Curfew (1988) and Starbook (2007) and by linking the ideas of chaos and consolation as integral to enlightenment. Short discussions on cosmic consciousness, transpersonal experience, the sublime, the myth of eternal return, and what is understood by an axis mundi are embedded in the argument—drawing principally on Mircea Eliade and Gerald Larue—and an attempt is made to show how these concepts can be applied to a reading of Okri’s eleventh prose work

Argument (complex analysis) · Art · Art history · Literature · Mythology · Poetics · Poetry · Realism · Sublime · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Philosophy · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies