A Metacritical Analysis of Umar Abubakar Sidi’s The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus ~ by Paul Liam

Abstract

Umar Abubakar Sidi’s debut novel, The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus has received critical responses from diverse readers appraising its unique experimentation with metafiction. It is an ambitious undertaking for a first-time novelist known for experimenting with Sufi and Surrealist aesthetics in his poetry. Existing analyses of the text have focused majorly on attempts to extrapolate the sociocultural messages and meanings in the text without recourse to its aesthetic nuances which stands out as a refreshing addition to the expanding body of Nigerian fiction. Hence, this essay attempts a metacritical examination focusing on the craft, aesthetics, structure, and how these elements contribute to the innovative essence of the text drawing from the frameworks of formalism and metafiction. The essay argues that far from serving as a socio-anthropological representation of society, the text embodies the vision of iconoclastic idealism.

Keywords: Metafiction, Metacriticism, Nigerian Literature, Garba Dakaskus, Discernment

Introduction 

Previous attempts to examine The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus have focused on unraveling the character of the protagonist of the narration, Garba Dakaskus around whom the story revolves. The invisible nature of Garba Dakaskus in the complex narratives that form the nexus of the text introduces the reader to the first technical features of the novel. The obscure depiction of the protagonist is tied to the overall objective and structure of the novel as a product of metafiction as we shall soon see in the course of this analysis. The question of who Garba Dakaskus is and whether the text contains a potent message that can be deduced by a reader is subject to several considerations such as the intellectual maturity of the reader and his or her familiarity with narratives that circumvent conventional storytelling approaches. In any case, these questions permeate discussions surrounding the novel, Sidi himself has not been able to provide a satisfying answer to assuage the curiosity of his teeming readers. This dilemma raises a pertinent question with regards to how a reader or even a critic engages with the text.

Many readers have approached the text with a preconceived notion of what a novel is or what it should be based on their preconceived ideas of conventional storytelling characterized by a linear plot, identifiable characters, conflict, and setting. Rightly or wrongly, over the years, many readers, particularly Nigerian readers, have been conditioned to approach a text from a sociological or sociopolitical premise fostered by a sense of the socialist literary theorization of the novel as a representation of social realism. The notion of fiction as a representation of social realities often blurs the many prospective perspectives and approaches to the appreciation of a literary text. Noting the sociocultural agency of literature as a tool for correcting ills in society, Megbowon and Uwah (2020) argue that “African [L]literature provides an opportunity for a connection with indigenous roots that made the traditional society a relatively non-perverted one while the simultaneous all-round forward progress of the contemporary is not jeopardized”. This assertion supports the reading of literary works as sociocultural constructs whose objective is to instruct, guide, and correct the ills in society by conditioning the mind of the reader towards imbibing the moral values and socially acceptable behaviors of a particular society. This is what they imply when they say that African literature enables the establishment of “a connection with indigenous roots that made the traditional society a relatively non-perverted one…” It is this orientation towards the moral and social responsibilities of literature that influences the type of reading that is heavily concentrated on the search for meaning. 

The point must be made that, reading for meaning is not a misnomer, it is a foundational obligation of the reader to seek to understand and connect with a text’s representation of his or her social and cultural realities. Akung and Iloeje (2011) explain the centrality of cultural influences in the reading of the African novel when they assert that: “In the treatment of themes of the African novel, impetus should be drawn from the particular cultural setting and experiences which these novels represent[s]”. In other words, the sociocultural reader seeks to achieve an inalienable sense of cultural reconciliation with a text. In other words, they see a literary text as a reflection of their environment and social or cultural experiences. After all, as Bertens (2014) opines, “Literature offers the most profound insights into human nature and the human conditions that are available to us”. Thus, the social realist reader searches for ‘insights’ and ‘human conditions’ that she or he can connect with their own lived experiences. Bertens further notes that traditional literary appraisals “focus on the meaning of a text, whereas practical criticism focuses on the “formal aspects of literature” which according to Bertens “also contributes directly to a text’s meaning.” Consequently, the average readers of Sidi’s work belong to the school of traditional literary appreciation whose goal is to unravel the meaning of a text in the context of the social underpinnings that reflect their humanity.

But, to achieve a more fulfilling reading experience of a work of metafiction, the reader is required to jettison his or her socialist orientation for a formalist approach which provides the reader with the necessary tool of analysis. Having a concrete foreknowledge of the mechanics of metafiction is crucial not only in understanding the form and structure of a metatext but also in establishing the intricate connections of the elements in realizing the aesthetic essence or appeal of a text. Perhaps, before we proceed to carry out a proper analysis of Sidi’s work, it is significant to establish the crux of metafiction. The Oxford Dictionary cited in Sarkar (2021) states that: “Metafiction is fiction in which the author self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or literariness of a work by parodying or departing from novelistic conventions and traditional narrative techniques.” This definition requires no further explication as it lays bare the underlying features of a work of metafiction characterized by the deployment of “artificiality or literariness, parodying and departing from novelistic conventions and traditional narrative techniques.”  Similarly, Waugh in Sarkar (2021) postulates that metafiction is “fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality.” In Waugh’s definition, the focus is placed on the ‘self-conscious and systematic’ elements employed by a work of metafiction to establish itself as an ‘artifact.’ In other words, a metafictional text is viewed as a piece of art that draws a connection between fiction and reality. 

Blair, Giles, and Dickstein (2024) in their contextualization of the historical evolution of metafiction as part of the ideological shifts occasioned by the impact of World War II, offer insightful explication on the exigency of metafiction thus: “A highly self-conscious fiction emerged, laying bare its own literary devices, questioning the nature of representation, and often imitating or parodying earlier fiction rather than social reality.” Central to their postulation as in the other definitions are the concepts of “self-consciousness”, and the “Parodying” of other work rather than indulging in the representation of social reality. Suffice it to say that the fulcrum of metafiction is premised on dissonance, of circumventing the conventional mechanics of storytelling in preference for and romanticization with “artificiality or literariness.” Having established that the core of metafiction is concerned with circumventing the conventionalities of traditional storytelling and elevating its esoteric idiosyncrasies, we shall now focus our attention on examining the elements that underpin Sidi’s text as a work of metafiction.   

Unraveling the Metafictive Elements in The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus 

The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus is a mystical metanarrative that sets out to distort our notion of the novel and its conventionalities. It is a novel whose primary subject is a mysterious book about knowledge and mysticism, narrated by a mix of characters led by Garba Dakaskus, a writer and librarian of the Sokoto Caliphate. Using a deluge of metanarrative techniques including dadaism, allegory, allusion, reflexiveness, intertextuality, and stream of consciousness, the novel attempts to instruct the reader on how to read and discern the meaning of a text. It critiques the conventional approaches to reading and views the attainment of illumination as the hallmark of discernment. The novel also provides commentaries in the form of summaries intermittently to guide the reader in keeping track of the lessons and messages ingrained in the narration. This is a typical characteristic of metafiction; it is self-indulgent and narcissistic in its presupposition that the reader lacking the skills to examine a text requires the guidance of a superior reader to discern the content of the book. This assertion constitutes the focus of the third section of the novel in which the author addresses the reader directly, distinguishing between the experienced and inexperienced reader. We shall come to this much later in this exercise. 

As already established, a work of metafiction views itself as an artifact hence every aspect of its composition is key to its understanding and appreciation. Therefore, examining the various components of the text and how they constitute the essence of the text is fundamental to achieving a holistic idea of what the text is about. Let us take, for example, the cover page of Sidi’s work, on the top and bottom of the cover, are two big eyes that can be likened to physical and mental sight necessary for seeing meaning beyond the surface level. Between the two big eyes, are various images of a bird in flight, a key, a skull, a snake, a sword, a love symbol, a cross, and galaxies. These images are symbolic representations of the mosaic of messages in the text. The key, for example, is used for unlocking the power of illumination, the image of love represents passion and desire, the sword represents war and conflict, and the eyes symbolize enlightenment. We can go on and on interpreting the imports of the images on the cover page without end. However, the point to note is that there is a correlation between the content of the cover page and the text. 

It is also important to note that the title tells us something about the book. The majestic gold font suggests the power and grandeur of the text as a unique piece of art. The semantic implication of the wording in the title cannot be lost on the reader. The words “Incredible” and “Dreams” connote the extraordinary powers of the narration and the author’s evocative imagination. It also infers that the content of the narration is but the product of dreams and hence should not be believed as true reflections of factuality. The pun effects of the name “Garba Dakaskus” evoke a poetic appeal in the reader. It also helps to add that, Dakaskus is a fictitious creation of the author. At this juncture, we shall quickly look at the structure of the text. Firstly, the text is not made up of chapters like most conventional novels do, rather it is made up of sections. There are five sections in total: the “Book of Mysterious Narrations” which runs from pages 15-160, “The Memoirs of Al-Sudani,” which runs from pages 161 to 192, the “Book of Sorcery and the Evolution of Superstitious Allusions,” runs from pages 199 to 219, and the “Book of Injurious Disclosures” runs from pages 221 to 267. In the middle of the four sections is “A Guide to the Secrets of the Alphabet”, a prototype of the translated copy by Garba Dakaskus. It contains only the cover page with the author’s name, a list of books soon to be written by the author, the publisher’s details, a dedication page, and an afterword that reads: “This is not a novel; this is a spirit book.” The book also contains a prologue that explains to the reader how the book was conceived and written by the author as well as what to expect from it.  It is important to reemphasize that this unconventional structuring of the book is reminiscent of the idiosyncrasies of metafictional writers.     

"the character-narrator tells the story of its author and how the author created it as a lead character in a would-be novel without giving a name. It is a refreshing experimentation of the idealism of metafiction."

Furthermore, each of the sections of the book adopts a different narrative technique, for example, the first section employs the first-person narrative technique interspersed with intertextuality through the use of quotes and indirect references to other texts and authors, it also uses reflexivity to make comments about the narrator, ideas and the events as they unfold in the story. The second section also adopts the same narrative approach as the first using multiple techniques. The third section employs the second-person narrative technique, the author uses the pronoun ‘You” to address the reader directly while also interspersing it with the first-person technique by using “I” to indicate that he is in a conversation with the reader. The fourth section uses the first-person approach with a bit of inventiveness in the sense that it is an unidentified character that tells the story of its creation and that of its author. This depiction presupposes that textual characters too are capable of feelings and emotions like human beings but are often ignored by their authors. So, in this instance, the character-narrator tells the story of its author and how the author created it as a lead character in a would-be novel without giving a name. It is a refreshing experimentation of the idealism of metafiction. 

Sidi’s brilliant imagination in creating a work of metafiction of high technical quality is telling of his range as a writer conversant with the ideological groundings that gave rise to the emergence of the absurdist inclinations that underlie the genre. He succeeds in sustaining the iconoclastic temperament of the genre in remarkable measures. However, it is time to take a look at the narrative structure and other critical issues in the text.

Demystifying the Narrative Structures and Character of Garba Dakaskus         

As earlier noted, the cumbersome narrative structure and mystification of the character of Garba Dakaskus is premised on the overall motive of the text to circumvent and befuddle the readers from making meaning of the text. Once again, self-absorption is the hallmark of metafiction as such technical complexity or dubiosity is its second nature. This is not a weakness; it is the strength of the novel. The metafiction writer delights in confusing the reader as a way of showing off his or her uncommon technical prowess. However, a careful examination can unravel the so-called mystical nature of a text of metafiction. And this we shall attempt to do in a moment. To reiterate, The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus is a text shrouded in absurdity, ambiguity, self-referentiality, metanarrative, allegory, and allusion. It employs a nonlinear narrative structure also known as “in medias res” which usually begins the narration of a story from the middle or towards the end and gradually reveals the events leading to where the story began. This technique aids in creating formidable suspense which sometimes confuses the reader just as in the case of Sidi’s novel. This is the primary principle underlying the narrative structure of the novel.

The first section opens with an introduction of Al-Juzjani, the eleventh century scholar and mystic who could discern the contents of a manuscript by merely scrutinizing its first letters, and the author of the mystic book, A Guide to the Secrets of the Alphabet and Other Mysterious Matters Related to the Arrangement of Letters in the Construction of Words and Sentences. The narrator then goes on to expatiate Al-Juzjani’s philosophical treatise on how to discern the contents of a book citing passages from the book. While this opening may be considered tedious because of its academic text, it is in fact in line with the already-stated absurdist nature of metafiction. So, in this uninteresting opening lies the secret to the understanding of the rest of the narration. Al-Juzjani’s mysterious book is the main thrust of the narration and it is around it that the rest of the narrative trope is built. The narrator introduces us to the contents of the book and why it is a treasure being hunted for by a famous book agent in Abu Dhabi. It is also important to note that the narrator engages in the critique of knowledge and the producers of knowledge as well as the users of it. It is an essential core of metafiction writers to engage in metacriticism which is a basis for establishing their unique perspectives on the form and acquisition of knowledge. Also, the narrator uses the language of instruction as though he is delivering a lecture to a group of students, it is designed to provoke the reader into a response. If we revert to the prologue preceding the first section of the book, we will get an idea of this supposition. 

The prologue reads in part: 

Let’s say that you buy a book. Do you turn the cover and begin to devour the pages immediately? No. You do a little pre-reading. Usually, you look at the cover. The name of the author, like a prized fossil, is emblazoned in straight, bold, golden letters, actually in Verdana font. The title, like a supporting spouse, loops beneath the author’s name in dark Kalinga font. (13)

The above passage sets the instructional tone of the story and it runs through the rest of the book. The author seems to teach his readers how to read his book by outlining the key elements central to the examination of a text for a review or an essay. The passage underscores the earlier assertion that in metafiction every aspect of the book is strategic to its overall meaning. This position is further elucidated in the first section “The Book of Mysterious Narrations” as earlier noted.  But we will now take a more reflective look at the import of the representation in the opening passage of the first section. Al-Juzjani’s mastery of discerning a text by scrutinizing its first letters is backed by the author’s direct quote of Al-Juzjani’s work to buttress his own instructional goal to impress on the reader the imperatives of his sermon. The quote from Al-Juzjani’s work is represented below in part: 

‘The first letter of any piece of writing contains the sum of the letters that make up the corresponding words and sentences of the whole. It is the fulcrum upon which the alphabetical architecture of the work is structured. The first letter carries about and within it the internal rhythm, the external resonance, the vertical distance, and the horizontal dimension of the whole. If you approach the first letter with the eye of a discerner, and the keenness of seeker, it will encapsulate you in its inner vision, thereby revealing unto you the real and imagined landscapes of its true meaning’ (17).

The direct citation of Al-Juzjani’s work concretizes the author’s didactic objective of instructing the reader on the essentialness of having the right skills for reading and discernment of meaning. This assertion is corroborated by another citation of Al-Juzjani’s work provided by the author which reads: “‘It behoves all sincere travellers on the path of enlightenment to arm themselves with an invincible weapon, the secrets of the alphabet, particularly, the secret of the first letter’” (17-18). By this depiction, the author presupposes that the art of examining the letters and sentences of a text is a foundational requirement in the process of acquiring the true meaning of a text, especially a text that regards itself as an artifact. This school of thought aligns with the Russian formalist theorist, Roman Jakobson’s idea on the appreciation of art based on the functionality of words and the meaning they embody as against the attribution of external meaning to them. Jakobson in Bertens (2014) asserts:

Poeticity is present when the word is felt as a word and not a mere representation of the object being named or an outburst of emotion, when words and their compositions, their meaning, their external and inner form acquire a weight and value of their own instead of referring indifferently to reality. (31).

Although Jakobson was referring to poetry when he made the above assertion, its applicability to prose and literature in general, particularly in the context of a metacritical inquisition, cannot be out of place since metafiction is a child of formalism. Bertens provides a broader summation of this position when he opines that: “The literary text distinguishes itself from other texts because we can see it as a message that is primarily oriented towards itself--its form--and not towards the outside world or its potential readers”. It is plausible to infer that Sidi’s text is oriented towards itself to borrow Bertens’ terminology, in how it focuses on instructing the reader rather than focusing on the story it is supposed to tell. 

The foregoing assertion has prepared us for the task of demystifying the narrative structure and character of Garba Dakaskus. We shall get to that in a moment. Sidi employs the principles of literary theorization and criticism in problematizing the subjectivity of the socialist’s idea of reading and interpretation of literary texts which focuses on meaning and social realism rather than the examination of the “letters” and “sentences” of a text which he considers as the ultimate source of germane discernment and illumination. This position invariably aligns with Jakobson’s formalist postulation cited above. This fact is corroborated by these remarks by the narrator: “Remember also, that in this book, we have learned of the technique of reading a book by scrutinizing the first letter, otherwise known as The Secret of the First Letter, which is believed to be invented by none other than the mystic Al-Juzjani” (110-111).

In the first section, Sidi uses the narrator’s voice through the first-person point of view and allusion to Al-Juzjani’s book to tell the story. In other words, there are two narrators in the story; the actual narrator and Al-Juzjani whose narration is through direct citation of his famous book. He also uses an anticlockwise technique in telling the story which begins with the conflict of the hunt for Garba Dakaskus by Jackson Miguel, the famous assassin hired to murder him, and then slowly reveals the events leading to the search for the mystery book by Al-Juzjani. Between these events, the author distracts the reader by interposing the narration with his commentaries about other happenings. It is at the end of the section that the reader discovers the true story behind the mysterious book and how it became a possession of Garba Dakaskus who also reveals his identity to the reader. 

Also, at the end of the first section, the second section of the book is introduced and it is here that the narrative structure becomes more interesting. The second section, “The Memoirs of Al-Sudani” chronicles the travels and exploits of Rishad Al-Sudani who is on a quest to visit his maternal land in the Igala kingdom in West Africa. Al-Sudani later seeks the company of the renowned scholar and writer, Al-Quti to accompany him on this journey and to write a memoir about his exploration around the world. Our concern, however, is not to summarize the plot of the story but to highlight the narrative structure. In this section, therefore, the author employs three main narrative approaches; Al-Sudani narrates the first part of the section, the original narrator is reintroduced via a break where he briefs the reader of Jackson Miguel’s progress in discovering his whereabouts and assures the reader that he is ready to take down the assassin. He also resumes narrating about Al-Sudani's travels leading to the discovery of another Al-Sudani’s existence in Timbuktu after the original Al-Sudani’s flying ship crash-lands. There is another break that introduces excerpts of a manuscript by the junior Al-Sudani which continues the narration before the next break. The original narrator returns to continue the story of the senior Al-Sudani which then transports the story to Yelwa in Kebbi, under the Sokoto Caliphate. It is at this point the denouement of the story begins to set in leading to the revelation about the origin of the mysterious book and how Garba Dakaskus came to be in possession of the book.

At this juncture, it is important for us to briefly x-ray the mystery behind the book. Malam Agali who was first introduced in the first section of the book is reintroduced at this point as an active character in the narration. Before Al-Quti’s death in ‘Yandoto reveals to Malam Agali the secret in his body and asks the old man to tear open his chest when he dies to remove the slate. So, after his death, Malam Agali exhumes Al-Quti’s corpse and removes the slate which contains a powerful message. Malam Agali goes on to transcribe the message onto scrolls which he then buries in a hole in his house. He goes blind after completing the transcription of the message in the slate but in return for losing his sights gains the power of illumination. However, a new twist is introduced in the narration at this point when Sultan Muhammed Bello and his army conquered ‘Yandoto in war and confiscate all the books in the kingdom, Malam Agali opens up to the Sultan of his being in possession of a book which he says belongs to the Sultan but he will look after the book. The Sultan considers his request and removes him to Sokoto where he becomes the librarian of the Caliphate.

The emergence of Sultan Bello in the company of Hugh Clapperton in the later part of the narration points to the incursion of European imperial presence in the Sokoto Caliphate signaling the end of an era and the start of a new one. Malam Agali, the custodian of the mysterious book and librarian of the Caliphate dies on the tenth birthday of his son Isah Agali. Isah Agali takes over from his late father becoming the official librarian of the Sultan at the young age of ten. The secret of the mysterious book is also revealed at this point. Perhaps a summary would suffice at this point: Al-Quti is the bearer of the slate that contained the magical power of illumination which Malam Agali transcribes onto scrolls after his death. Isah Agali takes over the protection of the manuscript bequeathed to him by his late father while serving as the librarian of the Sultan. Garba is a descendant of Agali who became the custodian of the manuscript in the 19th century. While it is not sure whether the manuscript was deposited in the Caliphate Archives, the narrator informs that his favourite book out of the “’Yandoto Corpus” in the Caliphate library is an untitled epistle written by a most distinguished philosopher and described unofficially as The Letter of a Deaf Philosopher (188) which remains hidden in the Sultan’s personal archive. This revelation by the narrator hints at one fact, the mysterious book, A Guide to the Secrets of the Alphabet is what transformed into The Letter of a Deaf Philosopher. The narrator affirms this assertion when he posits that: “I swear by the grave of my grandfather, only three people know of its existence. Even notable intellectuals like Jean Boyd and John Hunwick were never allowed close to the manuscript. The closest they glimpsed was to convince my grandfather to read portions to them from memory” (188-189). The clues that reveal this fact include that only three people know about the existence of the book, which are his grandfather, his father, and himself. It is significant to note that not many people had ever seen the actual mysterious book, they had only heard of its existence.

Another break in the narration takes us to the concluding part of the second section where the narrator once again in his reflectiveness reminds the reader of the goal of the novel. “Remember we are using an ancient trick to discern the contents of a book by merely scrutinising its first letter. This method is contained in A Guide to the Secrets of the Alphabet supposedly written by Al-Juzjani, but which we will soon know pre-dates Al-Juzjani and the Mad Caliph and, in fact, gleaned from The Mother Book or the Guarded Tablet in The Realm of Literary Immortals” (189-190). The narrator yet again resolves another mystery in the narration; that Al-Juzjani is not the author of the acclaimed mysterious book as attested to by the immediate passage. This then takes us to the middle part of the book which only consists of a cover page with the name of the author as Al-Juzjani and translated from the Ajami by Garba Dakaskus, a list of the books soon to be written by the author, a publisher's details with a publishing date of 1933, a dedication page and an afterword.

In the third section, the ‘Book of Sorcery and the Evolution of Superstitious Allusions”, the author adopts the second-person narrative style where the book becomes the narrator addressing the reader, more rightly, chastising the reader for the book. We know the book is the narrator when the book says: “I wonder why these rascals name me Book of Sorcery and the Evolution of Superstitious Allusions. They should have named me Book of Death or even better, Book of the Devil” (201). The section demonstrates the author’s already established agenda of theorizing knowledge and his instruction to the reader on the pristine exercise of reading and discernment. For example, in the following passage, the book narrator talks about some bastards who attempted to read it with ignoble reason and for which he blinded them. He then says: “Still, I waited for genuine seekers of knowledge, but no such reader approached me. Let us assume that you missed that chance, you still should have opened me five hundred years ago.” The section also pays tribute to notable thought thinkers like Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the moveable-type printing press which facilitated the evolution of book production, Henry James, the famous American-British writer, Omar Khayyam, a renowned Persian poet and mathematician whom the narrator claims to have killed to become the “sole survivor of that extra-telluric journey” (205).

The author also addresses writers when he posits that “‘When written with fidelity, books become the soul of writers. If writers are skilful if they had mastered the technique of retreating letters, then their books would entrance readers” (205). In another part of the section, the narrator echoes the determination of this exercise that this exigency of the text is not much about the story being told but about the author’s theorization of the art of writing and critique of what he considers a philistine approach to reading and interpretation of the book. Perhaps, the author foresaw that his novel would be disregarded as a misfit in the categorization of works of fiction hence his hard critique of readers and writers who in his estimation may not have the mastery of appreciating an iconoclastic text or writing one for that matter. Speaking of the prolific literary productions of Sidi Ahmad Baba of Timbuktu who wrote over three thousand books, Nashqabandi, the Persian mystic who wrote nine hundred volumes of a single book, the narrator asserts:

As appealing as this sounds, it is not for everyone. There are repercussions. For instance, if the reader is a superior reader, that is one having a higher understanding of the technique of retreating letters, then the reverse is what happens. The soul of the writer is then reflected in the soul of the reader. And depending on the skills of the reader, the writer could be lost in a state of flux, where he continuously reinvents his soul and transmits same to the soul of the reader. This is called the ‘cycle of agony.’ To people who lack knowledge and understanding, writers suffering from this affliction are said to have been possessed by malevolent spirits” (206).

Sidi’s disavowal of what he considers to be the reader’s lack of competent skills to read complex texts and the general philistine disposition to knowledge production results in his evolving a theory he calls “the technique of retreating Letters.” An ancient trick centered on the examination of the first letter of a book which according to him is essential to decoding the true knowledge and contents of a book. The technique of retreating letters and the examination of the first letter of a book to discern its content is discussed throughout the narration. The above passage is thus a problematization of the theory of discernment.  To conclude this section, it is instructive to once again reconsider the definition of metafiction which has been expertly provided by Klinkowitz (2017): “Metafiction is a style of prose narrative in which attention is directed to the process of fictive composition.” Klinkowitz further opines that “The most obvious example of a metafiction work is a novel about a novelist writing a novel, with the protagonist sharing the name of the creator and each book having the same title.” Klinkowitz’s explication gives credence to Sidi’s creative ingenuity in producing a novel that embodies the values of the genre it seeks to project. This, we shall soon see as we progress with the analysis.     

The above assertion is corroborated by the narrator's advice to the reader: “I will advise you: if you want genuine knowledge, go manuscript hunting, seek rare books” (217). Sidi’s penchant for provoking and questioning the ‘subjective’ understanding of the world of writing and conventional literary discourse, especially in Nigeria is enforced in this text. It requires an extensive examination such as we have attempted to do to yield a concrete understanding. As if to agree with this assertion, the narrator asserts “I have jumbled up my contents such that no matter how enlightened you are, you may not be able to decipher the hidden messages buried in the sentences” (216). 

We shall now take a look at the last section of the book, “Book of Injurious Disclosures” before we conclude this exercise by revealing the character of Garba Dakaskus using Sidi’s technique of discernment. The “Book of Injurious Disclosures” chronicles the responses of a lead character telling the story of its author. It is the lead character and not the author or narrator that tells the story, but the lead character in this context is in a conversation with the reader about its author which it criticizes for not giving it a name and how the author created it. The character narrates how the author discovered him:

My author staggered into his little room and stood before a mirror. He looked and saw the emotional contours of his face, full of hate, vitriol, and anger. He looked again and saw me, the lead character in his would-be novel, a strong-willed, young, handsome, and well-educated hero” (224). This technique recognizes the agency of characters as having and capable of expressing emotions like humans. For example, in another passage, the character criticizes the notion that characters have no agency of their own but are subjects of the author’s machination. He asserts: “I am sure this is against the popular tenets of perception. Most people think of characters as mere pawns in the expansive, manipulative, chess game played by authors and storytellers. Most people think of us as ideas, caricatures created by socially inept and half-demented individuals to keep themselves at least half-sane, yet eternally damned on the lowest rung of the mental ladder” (225). 

Towards the later part of the section, the character unravels the suspense of the book by first reconciling much of the suspense established at the beginning of the book. The narrator reveals how its author, Garba Dakaskus ended up in a psychiatric hospital known as the Mad House, in Room 206. It is in this room that Garba is reported by the narrator, of transcribing the secrets he carries into the walls and ceiling of the room. It is also in this room that Garba Dakaskus finally shoots and kills Peter Palthenghi, a visiting professor at the Sokoto State University who is in fact the assailant, Jackson Miguel who has been on the trail of Dakaskus. Garba Dakaskus is then arrested for murdering a visiting scholar and Professor Tahir Mallam Al-Farooqi is invited by the police to examine the writing plastered across the room by Dakaskus. Prof. Farooqi concludes that “Signs of literary shamanism and alchemy are visible, with sprinkles of the hallucinatory and the mystical” (244). The narrator also notes that Garba Dakaskus, its author, disappeared from the police cell where he had been kept by the police. Prof. Tahir goes on to transcribe the writings left behind by Dakaskus which is later published as The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus, maintaining the original title proposed by Garba Dakaskus. The narrator also reveals that he is Garba Dakaskus the narrator and author of The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus. “Voila! I was fully formed: Garba Dakaskus, the narrator of The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus. The more readers discussed the book, the more I became realized” (252). Garba Dakaskus remains at large after the murder of Peter Palthenghi, the narrator goes in search of himself—Garba Dakaskus. The representation exposes the sturdy deployment of irony in mystifying the character of Dakaskus aimed at stretching the imagination of the reader and his or her ability to discern the intricate juxtaposition of meaning and ideas in the text. For how would a character that has repeatedly made references to himself be missing in the narration where he is the primary narrator and author?

To conclude this section, we shall once again return to the core of this exercise which is the extrapolation of the theory of thought propagated by the author and which we have painstakingly attempted to examine in this tedious undertaking. Using the character of Prof. Al-Farooqi to underscore his ideological supposition of discernment, Prof. Al-Farooqi is said to have written an essay on the Dakaskus book titled The Storyteller and the Question of Authorship, in which the erudite Professor theorizes about the function of literature and its application in the treatment of mental illness suggesting that Dakaskus’ text is a foundation resource in this evolving discipline of medical humanities. A development which the Professor says was the subject of research by Dr. Zayyan, the director of the Kware Mental House in Sokoto. Prof. Al-Farooqi goes further to say “Currently, two novels are being administered as medication for mental patients in Kware Mad House. If this experiment succeeds, then Dakaskus and Zayyan will be celebrated for having discovered the mental health benefit of literature” (253-254). This accentuates the relevance of the book situating it within the discourse of innovation in the field of storytelling. As Prof. Al-Farooqi notes in his paper, “this is essentially an exploration of the meaning of authorship and the utility of fiction” (253), and for which he hails Garba Dakaskus as a “giver of life” for writing a book that is used in the treatment of mental illness.

Suffice it to say at this point that the rest of the narration is premised on the thrust of speculative mechanics which is intended to erode the reader’s discernment of the narration. By stretching the narration at this point even after several revelations of the identity of Garba Dakaskus, the author indulges in self-immolation to compound the anxiety and stifle the ability of the reader to connect the dots in the story. As I have noted already, the narrator’s search for its author is an exercise in futility for the narrator is the author in search of himself. Perhaps, the overreaching meaning in this representation is the philosophical idea of humans striving to discover who they are and finding their true identities in real life. 

Further Thoughts on the Character of Garba Dakaskus 

To gain additional insights into the illusive character of Garba Dakaskus, we will have to journey back to the earlier sections of the novel. Garba Dakaskus himself has told us who he is multiple times in the course of the narration. One such instance is when remarks: “I assure you, my refusal to reveal myself yet, to you, is in your favour; to protect you from the ugly incident that can arise from being affiliated with a man who is being tracked by an assassin” (111). He forewarns his reader on why he has chosen to be anonymous but in the same breath, he reveals himself to the reader when he says: “Wait. I will tell you something. I feel I can trust you a little. I am currently the occupant of Room 206 in a mad house in Kware village, located eleven miles north-east of Sokoto” (111). His revelation of himself becomes more explicit as he informs of his travel to London to participate in a two-week workshop at the behest of Professor John Luca Paltenghi. The narrator states: “At the appointed date, I, Garba, curator of the archives of the Sultan of Sokoto, packed my things and left for London through Abuja on Arik Air Flight 437” (129). 

Aside from merely revealing his identity, Garba also reveals his profession as “the curator of the archives of the Sultan of Sokoto” and the primary setting of the narrative, Sokoto. Furthermore, the identity of Garba Dakaskus is further elucidated in his exchange with a ‘fierce looking woman” at a bar in London where he had gone to take a soda. The woman asks him: ‘“Now, listen! Are you not Garba, from the lineage of Mallam Agali, the Sultan’s librarian in Sokoto?”’ And to her question, the narrator responds, “I nodded” (129). These instances pointedly speak to the question of the character of Garba Dakaskus. In the immediate previous analysis of the later part of the novel the narrator explicitly reveals his identity as the narrator and author. A metafictional novel makes self-conscious reference to itself as the subject of the narration.

The passage below provides more details on the connection between the narrator, Sokoto, and the later events that unfolded in the story which I have already discussed in the previous sections.   

According to her explanation, my grandfather, Mallam Agali, a loyal courtier, scholar, and servant to Sultan Muhammed Bello of Sokoto, had read the manuscript A Guide to the Secrets of the Alphabet (which is now referred to as the Text of the Parrot in occult circles). As the only surviving member of my family, Jackson Miguel, posing as John Luca Pal[th]enghi, and his team, planned to extract waves of the manuscript from me and thereafter dispose [of] me, then kill me. Because I want[ed] to live, I followed the young woman to an underground safe house. At night, I was smuggled into a private jet and returned to Sokoto (131).

The passage above summarizes the plot and setting of the text which is situated in the historical era of the reign of Sultan Muhammed Bello in the 19th century. Sultan Bello, an offspring of Usman Dan Fodio, was a notable scholar and writer reputable for consolidating the gains of the Jihadist revolution by expanding the frontiers of Islamic epistemology in precolonial northern Nigeria. By situating the sociocultural context of the text in this period, Sidi attempts to accentuate the reputation of the Sokoto Caliphate as a former epicenter of knowledge production and the cerebral industry of its peoples led by Sultan Bello, before the emergence of European colonizers in northern Nigeria. He juxtaposes the Fulani-led Islamic enlightenment period with the rise of the British Empire's imperialist expansionism drive of the Victorian era. The mysterious book is thus represented as a symbol of knowledge and enlightenment domiciled in the Caliphate’s library under the watch of Malam Agali, Garba Dakaskus’ grandfather, in Sokoto. The author seems to suggest that before the coming of European colonizers in northern Nigeria, the Caliphate had a robust history of literary culture and knowledge production. It can be deduced, therefore, that the coming of the colonial masters heralded the death of the once thriving culture of literary enterprise thoroughly enunciated throughout the narration.  

Some critics have hammered on the linguistic poverty of the text, accusing it of lacking in freshness and nuances that ought to accompany its iconoclastic posturing. While this assertion may be true, it fails to recognize the metaphysical texture of the text reminiscent of the ethos of metanarrative. It achieves its objective of strutting itself as a theorization of the art of writing. However, one cannot overlook its excessive romanticization and enunciation of its postmodern epistemic relativist aesthetics marked by the author’s ambitious attempt at theorization.

Equally, the novel suffers from a few editorial inconsistencies which could have been averted with stricter pruning. Also, the character of Jackson Miguel who also goes by the name of Professor John Luca Paltenghi could have been given more agency in the text. There is hardly an instance in the text where his voice is heard, all we know of him is the information provided solely by the narrator which is not a satisfactory representation of a major character in a 271-page novel.     

Conclusion

In this essay, I have attempted to demonstrate that Umar Abubakar Sidi’s debut novel is a remarkable experimentation with metafiction woven into complex narratives which upon closer examination exposes the author’s attempt at literary theorization. I have also attempted to explore the intricate narrative structures and underlying ideological premise upon which the text’s hypothesis of discernment is based, drawing on the frameworks of formalism and metacriticism. I also noted that the crux of the text is premised on the postmodern precepts of epistemic relativism. Equally, I highlighted some editorial inconsistencies in the text noting their implications for the realization of the aesthetic appeal of the work. Sidi’s work is an invaluable addition to the evolving body of Nigerian and African literature.  

 

Works Cited

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Bertens, Hans. Literary Theories: The Basics, third edition. Routledge, New York, 2024

Blair, Walter, Giles, James R. and Dickstein, Morris. "American literature". Encyclopedia Britannica, 17 Feb. 2024, https://www.britannica.com/art/American-literature. Accessed 5 February 2025.

Klinkowitz, Jerome. "Metafiction." Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature.  July 26, 2017. Oxford University Press. Accessed 7 Feb. 2025, https://oxfordre.com/literature/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-546

Megbowon, Funmilola Kemi and Uwah, Chijioke. “African Literature: A Tool for Societal Regeneration.” Imbizo: International Journal of African Literary and Comparative Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp 1-1701 September 2020. Accessed on 14 Feb. 2025

Sarkar, Somnath. “Metafiction: Definition, Characteristics, Examples in Literature”. E-Literature, June 14 June 2021, https://www.eng-literature.com/2021/06/metafiction-definition-characteristics-examples.htm. Accessed 5 Feb. 2025.

Sidi, Umar Abubakar. The Incredible Dreams of Garba Dakaskus. Masobe Books, Lagos, 2024.