An epic Zambian saga comes under scrutiny from our reviewer. Hard-hitting classic, or all huff and puff with no bite?
By Akumbu Uche
‘The Old Drift’ (Vintage, 2019) is an epic. Nearing 600 pages, Namwali Serpell’s debut novel is a multigenerational and multiracial Zambian saga that spans the years between 1903 and a very futuristic 2023. A novel in stories, the book’s structure is doubly tripartite. Every one of its three sections is further subdivided into three chapters, each following a different character over a period of time and this gives the book a polyphonic effect. Readers familiar with Serpell’s earlier, shorter fiction will likely recognize some of these chapters as the previously published short stories ‘Muzungu,’ and ‘The Man with the Hole in His Face.’
There is a good reason why the novel has been translated into Italian as Capelli, lacrime e zanzare – Hair, tears and mosquitoes. These things hold heavy significance in the book. The mosquitoes especially, as the author has cast a scourge of them in the role of Greek chorus and employed them as occasional narrators. The novel’s original title is a double reference to the Zambezi River, and the autobiography of Percy M. Clark, a self-proclaimed old drifter, who was one of the earliest European settlers in Northern Rhodesia, as Zambia was called at the time.
‘The Old Drift’ is intricately plotted and packed with commentary on multiple topics such as colonialism, race, gender, colourism, disability, sexuality, cultural clashes, genetics, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and Marxism among others, but where it shines most is its examination of history.
‘The Old Drift’ is intricately plotted and packed with commentary on multiple topics such as colonialism, race, gender, colourism, disability, sexuality, cultural clashes, genetics, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and Marxism among others, but where it shines most is its examination of history.
It is no accident that the novel begins with the depiction of the exploration and exploitation of African lands that characterised the continent’s colonial past. This is a book that is very much interested in interrogating the politics that shape historiography. One example is a character who comes to the realisation that “‘history’ was the word the English used for the record of every time a white man encountered something he had never seen and promptly claimed it as his own, often renaming it for good measure. History, in short, was the annals of the bully on the playground.” In reviewing how the country’s history has been framed, key historical figures like Kenneth Kaunda and Stewart Gore Browne are portrayed, and epochal events such as David Livingstone’s ill-fated search for the source of the Nile, the head-scratching Zambian Space Programme, the construction of the Kariba Dam, and even the Rhodes Must Fall protest movement in nearby South Africa are explored.
‘The Old Drift’ may start off as historical fiction, but magical realism, social realism and Afrofuturism all vie for space in this hodgepodge of genres. It could even qualify as fan fiction as eagle-eyed readers will be reminded of certain characters and circumstances in Zadie Smith’s 2000 debut ‘White Teeth.’ Despite the influence and shared penchant for literary risk-taking, Serpell’s florid style is distinctively hers and her electric prose is attention-grabbing.
Serpell’s strongest characters are the ‘Grandmothers.’ Sibilla, who spends most of her time hidden from sight due to an extreme case of hirsutism, starts out her life in Fascist Italy before moving to Zambia with her engineer husband; Agnes, is a posh English rose who loses her sight, but her disability gives her the ability to see beyond colour, and she eventually embarks on a forbidden interracial relationship; Matha is a child prodigy whose potential is squandered. After experiencing heartbreak, she cries uncontrollably for the rest of her life. These three women make up the backbone of the narrative and although they are ethnically and socioeconomically dissimilar, their lives hold a lot of parallels. Over the years, the paths of their descendants will intersect to the point where their grandchildren – Naila, Joseph, and Jacob – will form an inseparable trio.
Unfortunately, the novel tries to accomplish too many things at once and staggers under the weight of the author’s ambition. The decision to shift gear into a dystopian Afrofuturism overloads the system and plot holes begin to emerge.
Paradoxically, the more interconnected the stories become, the less cohesive the novel stays. The transposition from the various realisms to the speculative doesn’t help much either. Unfortunately, the novel tries to accomplish too many things at once and staggers under the weight of the author’s ambition. The decision to shift gear into a dystopian Afrofuturism overloads the system and plot holes begin to emerge.
One glaring plot hole is where a woman with two lovers conceives and is unable to identify the father of her child. This seems to be patterned from Zadie Smith’s prototype but given the fact the men in Serpell’s tale are not twins, and how scientifically advanced the setting of this part of the novel is, such an error goes against the logic of the world the author has created and is painful to read. Unfortunately, it doesn’t get much better after that, and as the book nears completion, what was once a roaring river trickles to an unsatisfying end.
Akumbu Uche is a Nigerian writer whose work has appeared in Bella Naija, Brittle Paper, Nowhere Magazine, and Open Letters Review. She lives in Owerri.
