What is the most interesting book you have ever read and why?

martinstomisin (50)in #book • 5 years ago (edited)

This is a lovely question!!!

My favourite book (novel) 📖 that I ever enjoyed reading is The Palm-wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola.

The reason this novel became the most interesting for me, is because it is a novel that is set in Nigeria in the timeless folkloric past published in English in 1952.

The novel is full of magic — magic realism. The book is narrated by the Drinkard himself. The first thing that strikes me most is that the Drinkard describes himself as a professional drinker of alcoholic palm-wine. This behaviour is unpunished by his parents, instead his father hires a tapster to tap about 200 kegs of wine a day that the Drinkard consumes — this is unbelievable. The story begins to take a new interesting shape when the tapster falls to his death from a palm tree. The Drinkard goes in search for his servant. And the rest of the novel follows the Drinkard's travels and his adventures.

Drinkard, the protaganist and narrator of the novel, goes in search of his deceased palm-wine tapster in Deads’ Town. On the way he meets with a series of adventures, in the process he gains a wife and wisdom.

The Palm-Wine Drinkard, like the folktales on which it is based, takes place in mythic time, in an indefinite past when, according to the novel’s protagonist, the people did not know other money except COWRIES. Cowries was the currency of traditional precolonial Yoruba society.

This particular novel is packed with amazing and beautiful immortal creatures. In the novel, there are many creatures like bush spirits and strange people, some are still alive and some are dead. This Drinkard encounters a different creature in his adventure. The Drinkard has juju (magical power) which allows him to escape or outwit his foes during his adventures.

I hope this makes sense???

Cheers!!!