Translation As meta-Creation: A Translator’s Experience (III)

Another textual space requiring meta-creative narration is regards Fagunwa’s religious sensibility, with particular reference to his liberality portending religious syncretism. There is no questioning the dominance of Christian sensibility in Adiitu Olodumare, as in his other novels, raised on occasions to the level of proselytizing, what Lindfors (1982;2002) refers as ‘preaching small sermons on the […]

Another textual space requiring meta-creative narration is regards Fagunwa’s religious sensibility, with particular reference to his liberality portending religious syncretism. There is no questioning the dominance of Christian sensibility in Adiitu Olodumare, as in his other novels, raised on occasions to the level of proselytizing, what Lindfors (1982;2002) refers as ‘preaching small sermons on the religious significance of some of the events that transpire…the Christian God even enters into the narrative occasionally as an active agent of change , an omnipotent force that rescues the righteous and punishes the wicked.’ This is replete in Adiitu Olodumare, especially in the Chapter on Adiitu’s Wonderful Dream (in my translation). On such occasions, there is a great temptation to intervene, recreate or even engage in offering outright alternative vision. Yet, one is comforted by the fact that moments of part-Bunyan prose style and direct Christian sermonization are sufficiently infrequent to discourage continuation with ‘direct,’ or literal translation—as far as possible. Fagunwa certainly recognizes and gives voice to other religions like Christianity and the traditional Yoruba religions. Take the example of his fervent appeal to God to intervene on his behalf in the life-taking illness of Iyun-ade;
The entire world cry to you and you save them. The Moslems call on you and you save them. You save Sango worshippers. Orisha worshippers call you and you save them. Oya devotees call and you save them. Why will mine be different that you will not save me? The Mysteries, p.103))
Even though the Saviour and God he evokes is the Christian God, there is ample recognition of the active presence of other pantheons.
Yet, a particular knotty occasion in this syncretic approach to religion is his obvious refusal to draw a distinction between Esu, the Yoruba trickster god and messenger of all Yoruba pantheons and the Biblical Satan, or Lucifer. The fluidity got to a head when he actual refers to the devil as Esu Elegbara, the Yoruba god on the crossroads. An instance is the admittance exercise of those who want to consecrate their life to the devil (Esu as he calls him here) in exchange for wealth, fame and other earthly benefits. In this interview exercise, the mix-up of Satan, devil and Esu is unmistakable. Provoked by the declaration of one candidate that he will serve Mohammed and another who will serve Jesus, the Chairman, who is apparently the devil incarnate went into a convulsive fit of rage, after cataloguing the darkness of the dungeon where he is confined, ended like this;
For rain to fall and the body becomes pitiably cold.
That is the position that the one you worship has left me, you humans.
That is where he left me, me Elegbara.
I, Esu the wonder one,
I, Satan, who leaves his food at the crossroads.
This is the level of metaphysical obfuscation that I wonder how a professional translator of an alternative religious persuasion, or even of a materialist bent could have handled the business as saying it as he said it. Those who acknowledge the gulf between the concept of Esu in the Yoruba cosmogony and the Satan/ the Devil in the Biblical universe will certainly feel disturbed by Fagunwa’s perception of Esu, Satan and the Devil as a continuum. It certainly creates a problem for a translator who wants to remain faithful to the Original text—especially if he was an Esu devotee/votive, finding Satan at Esu’s home at the crossroads!—as we artists of a certain bent are greatly fascinated by Esu’s enticing pranks, his playfulness and the dramatic potential of his split personality—far away from the dark cynicism of Lucifer’s dungeon.
There are many more challenges that I encounter trying to be a translator and, frankly, the thrill of it all, working on the last novel of an inventor, with great concern with moral, ethical an edifying themes of love, courage, dare, capricious and rapacious greed of mankind and so on. What does one do with the meaning Yoruba names in the text. All names of man and place is a stamen, a sentence. Then of course, the bewildering knowledge of the flora and fauna of the novelist—the entomogical, zoological and botanical vocabulary and register—many of which, tried as I did, I could find the English equivalent to-many of which out of frustration, I had to leave in their original! Indeed, I wondered, on those trying moments of incomprehension, or sheer incompetence, if Fagunwa himself had the English words for those animal and plant species, even of clothes and food ingredients.
 This is why, if I to what extent, if at all, I have succeeded in sticking to the depiction of the established ‘creative independence’ that traverses the ‘length, breadth and depth of this novel—like all of Fagunwa’s works. Hopefully, we have been able to sustain the flavour and tenor of Fagunwa’s story-telling in inimitable Yoruba.
Translating Fagunwa, as I found, is a half-way-house between credible and faithful depiction of the original and outright re-creation of parts, which I have described as meta-creation.
Olu Obafemi.