Book: Between Survival and Annihilation
Author: Clement Oluwole
Publisher: n/a
Year: 2021
Pages: 128
Clement Oluwole’s 128-page novel is a story of misfortune and mishap. It is driven by a sustained suspense marked by intrigues that can make a reader sit at the edge of their seat. The story’s capacity to arrest a reader, in the tradition of a thriller, is an experience that is worth having.
The book is divided into 10 chapters. As the title suggests, it is a story of a young man, Ambrose, who survives a fatal shipwreck. As the lone survivor, marooned in an island and rescued after more than three years, Ambrose is celebrated by the King of Theso and made a prince in the kingdom. But Ambrose’s story is more than this post-survival recognition. The reader first encounters Ambrose as a young graduate of Mechanical Engineering in his country, Ementa. At home, he minds the family garden, and it is while doing his round one day that an accident occurs, which will determine the course of his bitter-sweet life. With his catapult, Ambrose “took a shot at the thieving boy and the pebble located his skull…. He (the boy) lost grip of his hold atop the six-foot high fence as he heaved himself up and his little frame came crashing down like a sack of apples”. The boy later dies. This tragedy brings a misfortune that sees Ambrose, a brilliant graduate with a prospect of a fulfilling career, going to prison for manslaughter.
In misfortune, as in mishap, Ambrose has a talent for survival, which people around him, especially his grandmother, acknowledge, and a reader will surely admire. His survival tactics appear inborn, but they are also hinged on his training as a mechanical engineer, and indeed his ability to deploy his acquired skills to sustain himself in conditions of adversity. This point is perhaps the greatest thematic thrust of the novel, one of the clear messages that a reader can take away from the story. In schools, anywhere at all, skills are acquired for functional purposes, and well-acquired skills do not only guarantee a fulfilling career but they may also extricate one from deathly situations. Through his skills to repair vehicles and computer, Ambrose becomes a privileged prisoner enjoying a number of pecks. He also meets Hela, the elder sister of the boy he accidentally kills, and she ironically becomes his wife, thus bridging the inevitable gap between the two families.
And yet another misfortune will occur when Ambrose attempts to save his future wife, Hela, from her lecherous boss. Ambrose barges into the man’s office and demands that he stops harassing his fiancé sexually. Uncharacteristically, he tells the man, who is also his senior colleague, that he has recorded their conversation. The man, frightened by the possibility of being roped in by the recording, makes a move to seize the recording device from Ambrose and loses his balance, falling. Ambrose is later shocked to learn that the man has been hospitalised. He later dies and, in a twist of fate, Ambrose is back to the prison. While his recording device can exonerate him, because it is clear that he did not hit the man, it fails to work as a result of a mechanical fault. It is in the process of escaping from the prison, as the hangman’s noose is imminent, to the Kingdom of Theso through the sea that Ambrose suffers the fatal shipwreck.
Between Survival and Annihilation, Oluwole’s first published thriller, is a smooth reading, with a fairly straightforward plot structure, packed with intrigues, and it may be read in just one sitting. The story is purely fictional, presenting strange names and places. It is the kind of story one can escape into when frustrated by one’s social reality. While the story may totally remove a Nigerian reader from their socio-political reality, the series of misfortunes and the terrible shipwreck dramatized in the story may give a picture of Nigeria, a rather dysfunctional society, where citizens contrive survival tactics to sustain themselves. To survive in Nigeria, you have to be like Ambrose, able to deploy your skills for practical purposes.
A reader may pick a quarrel with the structure of the book: its lengthy blurb, the rather unnecessary Preface, and the glaring absence of the name of the publisher. The book is, however, excellently proofread, saving the reader the problem of having their reading experience marred by annoying errors. It is a book people, especially young ones, should be encouraged to read for its gripping story and beautiful language.
