"We moved along the river bank further and soon came across a huge tree... When we were about forty yards from the Tree, we suddenly felt someone peering out of it: peering and staring, and still looking, and still looking-like he was a photographer and wanted to take a picture of us, and was focusing his camera. As soon as we noticed that people were looking at us like that, we started running and ran to the left, but our eyes didn't lag behind, and we darted to the right, but then our Eyes turned to the right and focused again, and we didn't see it; we just felt it - the Look, and in front of us - the Tree. We looked once again at this Strange Tree that focuses... and well, run away: we rushed into the forest with all our might and without looking back. But just as we were running at full speed and without looking back, we heard a Voice and turned around for a second - we thought and heard that 120 people were climbing into an empty tank and shouting-and at that time Hands came out of the tree and indicated that we should stop immediately. We understood the signal, but immediately turned away and ran away, and then a Voice said: "Don't go any further; run to me!" - and we ran again, but not to the Tree, but into the thicket. But a voice thundered and rolled through the forest and ordered us to stop, and we stopped: we guessed that it was a Terrifying Voice. " ¹

Emos Tutuola

Writing about Emos Tutuola is incredibly difficult, almost impossible. But it would be wrong and unfair not to write or talk about it. It would not be an exaggeration to say that today it is a major value of world literature. Once acquainted with his works, the reader can no longer find peace: he is constantly looking for someone who would discuss what he has read with him.

Little has been written about Tutuola in Russia. The reason for this" taciturnity " is that even the most experienced African literary scholars cannot find words to describe the action that Tututola presents to us.

It is difficult to agree with many of the comments that accompanied the Russian translations of Tutuola's books. For example, V. Ivasheva in her book "Literature of West African countries" wrote that " the works of Tutuola ... in reality, they are fairy-tale cycles. " ² The publishers of Tutuola's book "The Adventures of Simbi" directly call it a "fairy tale" ³ .

The fact that a number of subjects in Tutuola's books are similar to the folklore of the Yoruba people has been noted by many literary critics. This is confirmed by the Nigerian author of this article, who also belongs to the Yoruba people. The well-known Russian literary critic-Africanist V. Beilis wrote that Tutuola's books "...They are based on borrowings from the mythological and fairy-tale epics of the Yoruba people, forming a transitional stage between folklore and literature" ⁴ . V. Vavilov also noted: "Tutuola absorbed Yoruba fairy tales. (Note that one of the most prominent features of Yoruba folklore is the grotesque, that is, the bizarre combination of the fantastic and the real, the beautiful and the repulsive, when, for example, death can drip to the ground like a cloth hung out to dry; or god throws a stone today and kills a bird yesterday, etc.) " ⁵

Well, that's a good point. Although, in our opinion, the authors draw incorrect conclusions from what was correctly noticed. V. Beilis directly stated: compare the Yoruba fairy tales published in Russian in the book "Fourteen Hundred Kauri" with the works of Tutuola - and you will see familiar plots ⁶ . But Tutuola is a Yoruba! He is from the world where the events about which the people put together and put together myths and fairy tales took place (and are still happening).

However, the attentive reader will certainly see that the works of E. Tutuola are not at all the same as the fairy tales of the Yoruba people. Nigerian publicist A. Akanji wrote: "Tutuola is not just a storyteller, but a creative poet whose works are unforgettable." ⁷ We agree with the opinion of the Nigerian author, who knows the fairy tales of his people (he is also a Yoruba) and understands Tutu better than foreigners.

However, Tutuola himself wrote:: "I was born in a very poor family and started writing for money. I retell fairy tales and various stories that I heard as a child. But I don't remember them very well.-

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revere it... I have spirits driving cars and ghosts talking on the phone. What can you do, I don't know how to tell stories like our old people " ⁸ .

It would seem that everything is clear - and what is there to discuss? But, in our opinion, not everything is so simple. Tutuola is a great master of the grotesque. He just laughs at his hapless "commentators", as in his books, he plays with the reader. Tutuola seems to recognize the correctness of his opponents and ... immediately disarms them. Each of Tutuola's new books is accompanied by laudatory comments, enthusiastic responses, and superlatives. At the same time, reviewers and critics admit that Tutuola's books do not lend themselves to rational evaluation, traditional literary commentary. But, the question is, why?

No one has yet explained why other authors who put Tutuola on a par with them (they are all "retellers" of folklore) did not become as famous as he did? Why didn't any of the "retellers" of folklore and folk epics create at least something similar to Tutuol's works? "In the West, it was considered important that Tutuola's books should be interpreted by a real psychoanalyst. And while the experts did not take up this task, the critics, as best they could, in an amateur way, took up this interpretation themselves. " ⁹ I do not want to follow V. Beilis in calling respected literary critics amateurs, but, unfortunately, they did not pass a very difficult exam-the ability not to measure the Other world by their own standards. And Tutuola's works definitely belong to another world.

It is all the more surprising that Tutuola's biography is simple and"elementary". He himself wrote: "I was born in Abeokuta in 1920, and when I was seven years old, my uncle took me away from my father and gave me to a friend in whose family I became a servant." During World War II, Emos Tutuola served in the West African Air Corps, and after being discharged, he tried to start his own business, but was unable due to lack of money and someone to help him ^.10

Reflecting on Tutuola's work, Czechoslovak researcher Vladimir Klima wrote:: "Even if the Freudian interpretation of Tutuola's texts is successful, it still does not answer the main question - about the source of his inspiration. Works of art such as Tutuola's books cannot be forcibly incorporated into a completely different system of ideas, which is especially often the case with outstanding works of literature. " ¹¹

Unfortunately, in recent years, public opinion about Tutuola's works has been formed by two literary critics, and it is not always possible to agree with their "analysis". Thus, V. Vavilov wrote that Tutuola's talent is "limited", and interest in his books even among Nigerians themselves is "very limited" ¹² . These statements are regrettable. Films have been made based on the works of Emos Tutuola, several plays have been staged, musical works have been written, and even an opera - is this not evidence of the wide public recognition and great popularity of the writer in his country and abroad?

Tutuola's books are of great interest as historical and ethnographic sources. His works are literally filled with folk proverbs, descriptions of traditions and historical evidence. From his writings, we learn that the Yoruba script (now based entirely on Latin script) used to be extremely original. Here's what Tutuola writes about it::

"...Long ago, when the Yoruba people had never even heard of whites, they used special signs, like the letters of today. Here are some of them. If the cowry shells were connected to each other with a convex side, this meant: "I want to see you." And if they sent back the same two cowries and another long feather, it turned out: "Wait for me." If the shells were tied with backs, it meant: "I don't want to know you!", and if another shell was applied to them, it meant: "Yes, I love you too!" But if the sender was sent a piece of coal in response, then it should be understood as a question: "Why, in fact, don't you want to know me?" and so on, and so on, in the same spirit. " ¹³

Tutuola's texts contain a huge amount of information about the traditional Yoruba religion. So, when describing the hero's visit to the palace of Oduduwa (the progenitor of all Yoruba), one can, for example, highlight the following episode: the gods pray to their gods. After that, you can't help but feel a desire to read special literature and learn more about this religion. By the way, in our libraries you can find a lot of works in Russian on the Yoruba religion.

Although Tutuola wrote his books in English, almost every page contains new words invented by the author; in fact, he became the creator of a new lexicon! Meanwhile, Tutuola's deliberate "invention" of new words was perceived by many swaggering Englishmen, and along with them other Russian critics, as Tutuola's poor knowledge of the English language!

However, the texts of the "illiterate" and "poorly known" English Tutuola are so elegant that it is simply impossible to read "fluently" - you need to enjoy every episode, every literary detail. Read, for example, this: "The walls of the palace were made of live migratory birds, and the windows, doors and roof were made of songbirds of a different breed. Their feathers were pure gold, and their feet and beaks were white... The musicians who played along with the birds looked like disembodied angels, and it seemed: touch them with your hand - you will grasp the void..."

The Russian reader is lucky that most of Tutuola's books were translated by the outstanding writer Andrey Kistiakovsky. The originality of his translations is recognized by all. By the way, Kistiakovsky himself never commented on Tutuola - he simply understood him.

Tutuola's texts are striking in their simplicity. They are read "in one breath", but a rare reader will master a hundred-page book in a few hours. For many people, the reading of these hundred pages stretches for weeks (and for the Russian author of this article, the reading stretched for several years).-

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swarm for months!). The lightness of the text is deceptive. Often you have to stop reading and think about the secret meaning of the author's words. You need to stop, catch your breath...

How easy is it to combine tragedy and sparkling humor, past and present, incredible precision and total abstraction, reality and fantasy? And all this Tutuola manages to combine often in just one line! However, you can only notice this if you stop reading on each line.

Separating reality from fantasy in Aemos Tutuola is very difficult, if at all possible. His works demonstrate not just the ghostly border between reality and fantasy, but the complete absence of such a border, and this sometimes makes you uneasy.

Why are almost all of Emos Tutuola's works emotionally charged? The answer to this question is not easy. The key to the answer lies in this: the very question " why " does not apply in principle to the world in which Tutuola lives and writes. An important part of this world is the phenomenon of time, which is always present in Tutuola's books. The author masterfully manipulates time: even the past for him is not going back, but moving forward. Tutuola recounts events accurately-down to the minute, recording how and when they occur, while simultaneously neglecting entire years. Tutuola's manipulation of time is not just elegant, but harmonious and natural, because the events in his books take place outside of time and space.

Some literary critics have called Tutuola's talent "dangerous" ¹⁴ . However, this part of literary critics confuses cause with effect. In reality, it is dangerous to underestimate reality, and not the talent of a person who has shown us, so to speak, real reality. Many people think that Chu Tutuola is making some kind of experiments with consciousness, psychological, if not psychiatric experiments. In fact, no matter how paradoxical it sounds, Tutuola describes only what happened to him in reality. But this reality often turns out to be fantastic. Agree, almost everyone can name one or two episodes in their life when reality was "on the verge of fiction."

The magic of Tutuola's texts is that there is not a single superfluous word. Everything is a quint essence. Try to make a "squeeze" of these texts - it won't work: you need everything! The magic of these texts is also that they are completely unpredictable. Try to predict how an episode will end or how it will continue. No matter how much imagination you have, you can't do it. Each line conceals not just an unexpected, but an unpredictable continuation. Here is an example. Let's try to check it out?

"...On the fourth evening, the villagers gathered again in front of my house. Everyone was served palm wine, and then everyone danced and had fun. Then I asked them to be quiet and addressed them with these words::

"I'm very happy to see you all again. Thank you for coming, I didn't expect so many people to come today - ninety percent more than yesterday. However, when I saw how many of you came today, I was afraid. You know what?"

Continue - what could the village elder be afraid of?..

"...What I was afraid of was this-there are too many of you; where, I think, can I get boards for everyone's coffin when their dying hour comes? And then I realized that not everyone needs a coffin. Some will be torn apart or devoured by wild animals, some will drown or burn to ashes in the fire, some will be kidnapped, and how many more will fall into the wells! All of them don't need coffins!" At this point, my listeners became terribly annoyed, and began to beat their chests with their hands and claim that they would not drown, burn, be abducted by intruders or eaten by wild animals, but would die at home and accept the rite of burial in coffins. After waiting for the general uproar to subside a little, I suggested that the audience understand me correctly and remember that no one on earth knows how or when he will die, and if anyone knows, let him tell me now about the circumstances of his future death. The answer was silence, with which the audience, though evasively, but honestly confirmed my correctness. Then they had a few drinks and danced, and then I started telling them about my fourth trip."

Tutuola has been repeatedly accused of not addressing social issues in his works, but this is not the case. Only not everyone can see the social orientation of his texts. Social problems are all a consequence of the wormholes of the soul, and Tutuola has written a lot about this. True, again, it is not easy to see these features and features of human souls in Tutuola's books, but this also shows the author's skill. Take, for example, the conversation of the hero (and this is the author himself!) with the queen of the Diamond City:

"The queen was curious about what I needed from them.

I confessed that I was looking for treasures, I want to take them to my native village. And I am very happy to be in her city: after all, she has a lot of diamonds in the palace, there will be something to take home.

When the Queen heard these words, she was angry.

"I'm surprised," he says, " at the human race. Why don't you always have enough of what God gives you?

"That's the way man is made," I said.

Renowned Yoruba cultural researcher Ulli Beyer, ¹⁵ comparing Tutuola to another Nigerian writer, Daniel Fagunwa, wrote: "Tutuola never moralizes, he is never sentimental. Fagunwa, on the other hand, never missed an opportunity to read morals and encourage the reader to improve." ¹⁶ Of course, Tutuola also improves his reader. But it does it more gracefully than anyone else. Direct moralizing is far less effective than what Tutuola does: he puts his reader in a kind of dead end, from which he - the reader - must get out by asking himself a lot of questions.

Reading Tutuola's works contributes to the expansion of erudition. So, in order to understand many of his sayings or the Yoruba proverbs quoted in the texts, the reader needs to find additional information somewhere.-

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provide detailed information about the way of life and customs of this African people. Not everyone will be able to appreciate Tutuola's humor, for example, when he quotes the proverb "The thief stole the horn. Where is he going to blow it? In the world of these whites or in heaven?" This can only be understood if you know that we are talking about a bugle that is played only for the king ¹⁷ . There are many such examples.

The inner spiritual power of Tutu's texts is clearly shown, for example, in the following lines of his book:

- "...Will I get rid of these torments? Simbi asked her heart longingly.

"Of course you will," my heart whispered.

"And when will it be?" "I don't know," she said bitterly.

"Very soon."

"I don't believe it."

"We must believe," said my heart."

It is possible that Tutuola cannot simply be read the way we are used to reading books: sitting in a chair or lying in bed, at night. How not to remember that the incredibly complex poems of the world-famous Senegalese philosopher and poet Leopold Senghor must be read to the music of African instruments - the bark, the African flute, the balafon. Senghor himself indicates in his texts, accompanied by which musical instrument you should read his poems. Perhaps the same approach is needed for Tutuola's texts. For example, the book "Journey to the City of the Dead "(in one of the Russian translations - "Lover of palm wine") can be understood only by tasting palm wine - and this is not a joke! But Tutuola, unlike Senghor, does not give any recommendations in this regard. Either we have to guess this for ourselves, or it's too natural for a Yoruba writer to just forget to tell us.

Reading and rereading Tutuola carefully and for a long time, always discussing his works (preferably with someone from Yoruba), you finally begin to understand the meaning of his phrase from the book "Simbi and the Satyr of the Dark Jungle", which in the Yoruba language sounds like this::

"Emi to ba se nkan ti aiye o se ri, yo ri nkan toji ori yi!"

..Tutuola, indeed, has done something unprecedented in world literature. Will it help the Russian reader see something unprecedented? We are sure that yes. But this will require some strain of thought and spirit. So, in a good way!

-----

¹ From the book "Journey to the City of the Dead"by Emos Tutuola.

^{Ivasheva L.,} 2 Literature of West African countries. Proza, Moscow, 1967, p. 171.

^{Tutuola A.,} 3 Adventures of Simbi, Moscow, Khudozhestvennaya literatura, 1968.

^{Tutuola A.,} 4 Journey to the City of the Dead, Moscow, Nauka Publ., 1973, p. 84 (afterword by V. Beilis).

^{Tutuola A.,} 5 Izbrannye povesti [Selected Stories], Moscow, Raduga Publ., 1988, p. 10 (foreword by V. Vavilov).

⁶ See Baylis ' afterword to Journey to the City of the Dead, p. 86.

⁷ Black Orpheus, (Ibadan), October 1958, p. 53.

⁸ See: Nagibin Yu., From the Nigerian notebook, / / Novy mir, 1970, N 12.

⁹ Afterword by V. Beilis, p. 82.

^{Tutuola A.,} 10 My life and activities, // Tutuola A., The Palm-Wine Drinkard, Grove Press Inc., New York, 1953, p. 129.

¹¹ Klima V., Tutuola's Inspiration, // Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Archiv Oriental'ni, [Vol.] 35, 1967, p. 557.

^{Vavilov V. N.,} 12 Rol ' fol'klora v stanovlenii nigeriiskogo romana [The role of folklore in the formation of the Nigerian novel].

¹³ See, for example, "Palm-Wine Drinkard, Opera by Kola Ogunmola".

¹⁴ See, for example, the article by I. Kulikov "Dangerous Gift" (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 2000, October 12). And in V. Shpakov's article "Encephalogram of Another", published in the St. Petersburg "Smena", the author writes: "Tutuola's book is important as an encephalogram of Another world, which is both curious and dangerous at the same time."

¹⁵ W. Beyer was the editor (together with Abiola Irelle) of the most famous magazine on African culture "Black Orpheus", published in the 60s of the XX century in Ibadan (Nigeria).

^{Beier U.,} 16 "Fagunwa. A Yoruba novelist", // Black Orpheus, (Ibadan), N 17, June 1965, p. 54.

¹⁷ "Black Orpheus", N 4, October 1958, p. 52.

JOURNEY TO THE CITY OF THE DEAD

E. TUTUOLA

When the passersby cheered and left, I got up and walked down the road to Death. I walked about thirty miles, but saw no one, and at first I was surprised, and then I was afraid, and as I walked along the road I became more and more afraid, and then I realized that I had already come.

So I came to see Death, but she was not at home: she was working nearby in a sweet potato garden. I went up to the veranda, saw a drum, and began to beat it to welcome Death. But as soon as Death heard my knock of welcome, it spoke up and said: "Who is that knocking there, alive or dead?" And I answered her: "Knocks alive."

As soon as Death heard that I was alive and not dead, he became terribly agitated and terribly annoyed, and ordered the drum to tie me with a rope. And then I felt that I was already bound, so tightly that I couldn't breathe.

I realized that I was bound and could not breathe, and I ordered the fatter sweet potatoes to bind Death itself, and I advised the thinner sweet potatoes to flog it. As soon as I ordered and advised them to do this, the sweet potato stalks set to work - the fatter ones tied it all up, and the thinner ones - and began to whip it: they whipped it, and whipped it, and whipped it. Death saw that she was being flogged, and flogged, and flogged, and ordered the drum to untie me quickly, and so I felt that I could breathe, and advised the thinner stalks to flog her, and ordered the thicker stalks to untie her, and Death came into the house, then came out on the veranda, met me at the threshold and invited me to visit. After a while, she brought the food, and we ate together and started talking. So we talked and talked like this: Death asked me where I had come from, and I said that I came from a city not far away; then Death asked me why I had come, and I said that I had heard a lot about her-

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Val, and I really wanted to meet her in person; and Death said it kills people.

Death showed me his house and his vegetable garden, and showed me the skeletal bones of men, and showed me a lot of other things, and I noticed that there were bones by the stove instead of firewood, and the glasses and plates and various other bowls were made of human skeletal bones.

None of the people lived near Death, not even the wild animals went around her house, and the birds did not fly to her garden, and so she led a solitary life, and all the rooms in her house were empty.

When night came and I wanted to go to bed, Death gave me a wide black blanket and took me to a huge room of my own, but the bed in this room was made of bones, and I was afraid to look at it, and even more so to sleep, and I did not intend to sleep in it, because I know these mortals pieces.

So I was afraid to sleep on the bed and crawled under the bed, but I didn't sleep there either: I was afraid of human skeletal bones, I lay there and was afraid, but I didn't get out from under the bed. As the time approached two o'clock in the afternoon, I realized that the deadly thing was beginning: Death had carefully crept into the room, and in her hands she held a heavy club. Death crept up to the bed under which I was lying, but as soon as it hit the bed with all its might, and then three more times as soon as it sat down, as soon as it gasped - and quietly, on tiptoe, it began to leave: it thought that I had slept on this bed, and it also thought that it had killed me to death.

The next morning, I purposely got up first, at 6: 00, and went to see Death, but when she saw who was waking her up, she was so scared that she immediately jumped up and did not even wish me good morning.

Then the next night came, and I crawled under the bone bed again, but there were no pieces this time, and at two o'clock in the morning I got out from under the bed, went out on the road, walked a quarter of a mile, stopped, and dug a Trap Hole so that she (Death) could fall into it. After that, I carefully covered the Hole with a net, went back inside and crawled under the bed, and while I did the trick for Death, she slept peacefully and didn't know anything.

I got up at six o'clock in the morning, as usual, and went to see Death, as was our custom, and I woke her up and told her I must go, and let her go with me a little way; and so Death got up and we went down the road, but when we got to the Trap-Pit, I said to her, " I'm not going to I said I was tired and sat down by the roadside, but Death wanted to soak in the dust and lay down on the road and fell into a Hole. I jumped up, quickly rolled her up in the net, put the bundle on her head, and started walking toward the city.

I was carrying Death on my head, and she was kicking and twitching and trying to get away or kill me to death, but I didn't let her do anything like that, so I got to the city and went to the old man who asked me to bring him Death. He was sitting in his house, and I called out to him and told him that I had brought him Death as agreed. When the old man heard that I had brought him Death, he looked out of the window and was terribly horrified: he shouted that I should immediately drag her back, and he himself began to lock all the windows and doors, but before he could lock them on all sides, I threw Death to him right under the door - the mesh was torn into a million pieces, and Death jumped up and looked around.

The old man and his wife jumped out of the windows, and all the people in the city jumped out of their houses, and ran everywhere, and disappeared from sight. (The old man thought that Death would kill me to death - no one ever got away from it alive - but I knew these mortal things.)

I dragged Death out of her own home, and she had no permanent home, and now she wanders and wanders the world, and we hear about her here and there.

This is how I delivered Death to an old man who wanted me to deliver it before he told me about the deceased vinary.

But the old man could not tell me about the vinar, although he said that he would tell me as soon as I brought Death to his house; he did not have time to fulfill his promise, because he had to escape from Death. And I left without knowing anything.

I wandered for four months and came back to the city, a small one, but with a huge and famous bazaar. As soon as I reached this city, I went to the chief elder of the city, and he immediately cordially invited me into the house and ordered me to feed and give me plenty to drink. I ate and drank palm wine - I drank a lot of it, but then I drank some more, and then I drank it instead of water, as if I had found a dead vinar.

When I had eaten and drunk to my heart's content, the landlord asked me who I was. "Father of the Gods, All-powerful," I said, and he was weak with fear. After a while, he came to his senses and quietly asked me what I wanted. I explained to him that I wanted to find a vinar who had died falling from a palm tree, so I wandered through the woods and thickets. And the owner said that he would help me.

The elder said that he would definitely help me once I found his missing daughter, who was dragged away by a malicious Beast.

He said that since I was All in the World, it would be easy for me to find his daughter, and then when I brought his daughter to him, he would tell me where to look for the vinar, and I would easily find my vinar. Since I'm so all-powerful.

I really wanted to find vinar, but I didn't know where my master's daughter was.

I decided to give up and not look for his daughter, who had gone somewhere unknown, but I remembered about my all-world power, and I was ashamed, and I agreed. And so there was a famous bazaar in that city, and every five days all the people who lived in the surrounding villages, and the Dense Spirits from the nearby thickets, and the Evil Animals from no one knows where, gathered there. At four o'clock the bazaar would close, and everyone would go their separate ways: people would go to the surrounding villages. Dark Spirits - in the nearest thickets, and Malicious Animals-no one knows where. The elder's daughter sold all sorts of small things, and shortly before she was taken away from the bazaar, she was scheduled to get married, and her father allowed her to choose a husband for herself, but she did not want to choose anyone, so he found a good man, and she refused to look at him. And her father left her alone.

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