RE: Helon Habila’s Oil On Water
“The boy saw me looking at him and returned my gaze without self-consciousness, his eyes guileless and full of curiosity, forcing me to turn away,” (7).
Helon Habila’s Oil On Water follows the journey of two journalists–one a seasoned veteran, the other an eager novice–as they travel the Niger Delta hoping to locate and confirm the safety of a kidnapped foreigner. The novel’s experimental discursive order, brief flashes of myriad characters, and treatment of personal motives bring depth to the story and focus to interrelation between characters and environment.
Shame features prominently in this novel. Our protagonist, Rufus, must confront his sense of responsibility and regret in relation to his sister after an oil fire accident left her disfigured and unmarried; he further struggles to position himself in relation to tribesmen he encounters in his voyage. One representation of his interactions has him taking pictures of old women too worn or wise to respond to his presence; the same scene features young women posturing for his camera.
Further insight into Rufus’s mind is provided when he encounters the human waste and product floating along the river delta, included among which is a human arm. This arm, severed at the elbow, had, “its fingers opening and closing, beckoning” (38). Rufus mentions seeing that same arm, “floating away, sometimes with its middle finger extended derisively,” in his dreams (38). By including the arm amongst the waste floating down the delta and then framing this moment in the context of Rufus’s dreams, Habila effectively dehumanizes the native population of the area while distancing Rufus from them, simultaneously exemplifying a sort of antipathy Rufus perceives in those around him.
The narrative construction of this novel further encourages the reader to position himself and the protagonist in relation to the environmental hazards of the Niger delta. Instead of following a linear chronology, we see this journey unfold through the flashes of Rufus’s memory, interweaving dreams, memories, and tenses past and present according to the author’s whim. The most obvious success gleaned from this approach is its efficacy in engaging the critical mind of its reader. To understand the story we must understand the mind of its players.
Experiences of shame are not restricted to the novel’s main characters but, instead, become a lens through which we come to understand cultural transformation amongst the native peoples of the Niger Delta. In Lagos, for example–a microcosm of broader cultural changes–we’re given an image of the potential for change marred by the loss of tradition: “In Lagos you can dream, you see. There are no boundaries, no traditions or family to hold you back” (120). The people of this territory are given the opportunity to redefine themselves, to start afresh, but in the process find themselves riddled by prostitution, gluttony, and the like.
Habila’s Oil On Water succeeds on many fronts: not only is the text engaging, entertaining, and informative, but it encourages the reader to call into question the changing faces of culture and environment in the Niger Delta. By instilling depth in its characters–both prominent and shortly featured–through the use of shame and questioned relations, Habila asks the reader to question his or her emotional relations to the content as well.
