Lullabies or reference tomes; it is up to writers

There are books that you only read on the matatu to Syokimau, in the heat of the 5:30pm crawl through Mombasa Road. You save them for that hour because their drab language, cardboard characters and predictable plots do not require a second thought. They are unlikely to disrupt your tired mind as it sinks into a welcome nap.

There are other books that you carry to the queue at the US Embassy so that you can immerse yourself in their hilarious characters and escape the despair and embarrassment that comes from eavesdropping on the dubious tales of some visa applicants.

And then, there is that book that keeps you awake way past 2am, determined to get to the end. But that kind of book truly has no ending. Within a month or a year, even three years later, you find yourself picking it up again.

Sometimes you start afresh from the very first page. Other times you go directly to your favourite sections of dialogue; you ponder over the choices of a particular character and you contemplate what might have happened if that character had chosen a different school or a different husband.

We read for different reasons and by the same token, there are different types of literary writing. Some books — whether their writers intended it or not — are lullabies that you purposely pick up to induce sleep.

PRESCRIBED DIET

Others — whether their writers intended it or not — are in the rank of a prescribed diet. You tried hard to get past page 47 because the book was on the syllabus and you will never know how you passed that exam when all you did – as you fought the pain of recollecting a nightmare — was regurgitate the lecturer’s words.

But now that you are sitting in the doctor’s waiting room expecting a death sentence, you pick that darned book up again and will yourself to get to the last page lest it should be discovered on judgment day, that you never did finish reading War and Peace, or Flame of Freedom or Dust.

Happily, there are those books – again, whether their writers intended it or not – that become the manuals by which you navigate this life. You mimic their word play and their definitions of courage. You try hard to emulate their examples of moral strength.

Every time you meet someone who connects with you at an intellectual or social level, you want to know whether they have read your sacred book — that one that you have elevated into a mantra. If they haven’t you chide them playfully because, in your serious opinion, their cultural references are incomplete for so long as they have missed out on one of life’s greatest treasures – your favourite book!

A book that becomes this kind of reference work that a reader wants to return to again and again is the hallmark of a writer’s achievement. Do all literary writers court this kind of status from the very onset?

Biography, as a specific branch of Literature, makes distinct claims to being a reliable reference to life in a specific era.

Whatever vanities lead one to write an autobiography or to license a biographer, one thing that is certain is the subject’s belief that his or her life is worthy of scrutiny; that it contains lessons that others can benefit from.

If we approach Ng’ang’a Gicumbi’s recently published work, A Lawyer for Our Times: A Biography of Fackson Kagwe, with this argument in mind, what lessons can we draw from it? To what extent will it become a valued reference point?

The corollary of that question is this: whom is this book meant for? Who might find lasting value in it?

First, potential parents choosing a name for their new-borns should sample this story. One has to admire a man who goes through 77 years with a name that is as tricky around the auditory senses as Fackson! You really don’t want to imagine what kind of jokes were cracked on the playground, at his expense, and what sniggers are muttered every time he rises from the bar to introduce himself to the court.

GETTING A WIFE

Secondly, there is a section in this book that should be titled, “how to find a wife when you are socio-economically ready to get married but you have no girlfriend”. It doesn’t matter that Kagwe’s method may sound a bit dated. Those who are in their salad days can still learn from him how to recognise potentially toxic brides who, though absolutely eager to tie the knot, are inherently driven to fatally defeat an auspicious union.

Perhaps this book was intended solely for lawyers, especially those who are preparing to sit the bar exams. In truth, the life that Fackson Kagwe has led is largely predictable. Consequently, his biographer pads the book with portraits of the political context of colonialism and extensive reflections on several legal statutes.

The biography turns into a dissertation on land law interspersed with extrapolations on settler rights, the Native Authority Ordinance, The Chiefs’ Authority Act, our history of local government and education laws.

If only those pages had been used to expand David Anderson’s 2005 thesis on the evolution of malignant corruption at City Hall, where Kagwe served as Assistant Town Clerk for seven years, until 1975 when he left to go into private legal practice.  At the time, the sleazy dealings in real estate hit a dramatic high when the City Engineer was charged in court with assault.

In the heated struggle for control of the colossal budget for the USAID-funded Umoja Housing Scheme, he broke the leg of the Project Director and was arraigned in court.

But Kagwe’s biography makes no reference to such city hall shenanigans even though he worked there in the critical years of Africanisation.

Anyone who ever intends to write a biography should read this book and reflect on technique. Socio-political context is important in life writing, but biography is hardly the forum for intricate ruminations on legal principles. They become a cumbersome burden on the reader whose only interest is an illustration of character and situation. 

The limits of context aside, life writers can learn from this book the minefield of contradictions that underpins all memory work. For instance, in the process of stamping the identity of his subject as that of a resolute Murang’a Mugikuyu, Ng’ang’a Gicumbi, resorts to many stereotypes to define and categorise the Gikuyu people.

It is interesting to see which set of colonial-era rumours and stereotypes Gicumbi endorses and upholds as integral truths about this ethnic group and which ones he hurriedly discards as ill-conceptions manufactured by ignorant others.

The lesson to be drawn here is not whether or not stereotypes are true. The point is for us to understand what a particular stereotype allows one to do; what work we give it, what ends we want it to serve.

Publishers are another category of readers who can find lasting lessons in Gicumbi’s work. The jacket of a book is an important part of the text. Its work is to hook the reader, to literally scream from the shelf and command one to pick it up and take it home. To achieve that effect, we need book designers who can give us an intriguing graphic that epitomises the mysteries that lie within the two covers.

Finally, this book is valuable reading for all those who debate questions of faith and piety. Does going to mass every single day make one a better Christian? Can it stem slimy dealings and the rise of what Kagwe describes as, “runaway lawyers who prey on gullible clients by stealing from them … a trend that is steadily tarnishing the legal profession …”?

One of the most enjoyable aspects of reading a biography is diagnostic: finding the clues that will help you figure out why it was written, what propelled the subject into this kufungua roho moment. In this regard, Kagwe’s story does not disappoint.