Fiction as Philosophical Exploration: A Dialogue with Solomon Kobina Aremu

Solomon’s manuscript, ‘The Rage of Lambs’, follows David Kuta after he arrives at his new boarding school, Mandela High. Kuta has high hopes and expectations, since Mandela High has an excellent reputation and alumni from across all strata of high achievers in various professions. However, after adjusting to the new environment and making new friends, Kuta quickly realizes that things at Mandela High are not what they seem. 

Solomon talks about his changed relationship with reading, how writing stirs philosophical exploration, the nationwide protests that inspired him to write ‘The Rage of Lambs’, surviving the COVID-19 pandemic through mental toughness and sharp vigilance, a united continental vision, striving for better as humans, and the ways in which journalistic training helps create fictional characters that breathe and live on the page.

Davina: Where do the origins of your relationship with literature lie?

Solomon: I guess it starts with reading and my wild imagination. My parents fed me with story books ever since I could read at a very tender age and I remember I would spend hours not just devouring them, but being part of the fantasy. 

I loved fairy tales, the Greek myths, the Reader’s Digest and African stories like Kweku Ananse (a crafty character in Ghanaian folklore). In secondary school, it was crime fiction and my favourite writer of that genre was James Hadley Chase. George Orwell’s Animal Farm also made a huge impression on me.

Davina: Any particular fairy tales, Solomon? 

Solomon: Most of them. Especially the Brothers Grimm stories. Jack and the Beanstalk, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Little Red Riding Hood, Seven at One Blow, etc.

Davina: I’ve always been partial to The Ugly Duckling. (These days I enjoy it even more because I read it as a veiled commentary on nest parasitism. Hah!)

The first Ghanaian writer I read was Efua Sutherland. Did you encounter any Ugandan writing/literature as a student?

Solomon: I don’t remember if we used any Ugandan writers in school (my memory regarding such things is terrible, these days). But we used Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s Weep Not Child, and lots of Soyinka and Achebe.  

Davina: In speaking about why he chose writing as his artistic medium, Andrew Chatora mentions a love for reading that began when he, too, was very young:

I love to read. I have a voracious appetite for reading, something which started when I was a little boy. Work commitments often distract me, but in recent years, I find the wheel has come full circle as I read more and more. Nothing beats a good book as a companion for quiet introspection. Besides, writers have to read prodigiously anyway; it positively impacts on one’s craft.

Writing also provides me with my escapism space where I become a recluse with my characters and their myriad world[s]. Many a time, I’ve regaled in unmitigated raucous laughter alone at the relationships amongst my characters, taking enjoyment in their limitless wit, biting sarcasm, acerbic humour captured in their mundane conversations. Writing is beautiful and liberating!

Would you say there are differences between how you read stories when you were younger and how you read stories now? In what ways has the writing of fiction changed your relationship with the reading of fiction?

Solomon: Yes, when I was young I read for pure enjoyment. Now, I read a lot more critically. I think about underlying messages, biases, whether the author is a woman, a man, or from a marginalized group, etc., and how that impacts their perception and my perception as a reader. 

As for whether writing fiction has changed my relationship with the reading of fiction; from a writer’s perspective, yes, I do take special note of well-written dialogue— whether or not it rings true—as well as the use of unique, descriptive words and well-used metaphors that I can try to emulate without copying. 

Davina: I co-sign: well-written dialogue is always a treat! I recently talked to a writer who quoted John Cheever to me; when asked whether ‘fiction should give lessons’, Cheever said:

Fiction is meant to illuminate, to explode, to refresh. I don’t think there’s any consecutive moral philosophy in fiction beyond excellence. Acuteness of feeling and velocity have always seemed to me terribly important. People look for morals in fiction because there has always been confusion between fiction and philosophy.

Is this, do you find, a common confusion?

Solomon: No, I don’t. Writing stirs philosophical exploration, whether you agree or disagree with a character choice, whether the ending leaves you feeling that a particular political or social philosophy prevailed in the end, which may be aligned to your own philosophy or may be different from what you may have preferred. The character’s way of looking at the world, which is like a philosophy of life, seen through their words and actions, is always woven throughout a story. 

So I may be missing something but I don’t really agree. I don’t think a writer of fiction is necessarily attempting to imbed lessons; and one could say let the story and the characters drive the writing, not some pursuit of a moral, unless it’s a fable of course! Regardless, readers pull meaning from the theme or themes that run through writing. 

I recently read a novel based on the American civil war titled ‘Lucifer’s Drum.’ The author does not set out to espouse a particular philosophy; from what I can tell, the story is driven by the plot and characters, but the themes touch on justice, compassion, beliefs, hate, racism, heroic deeds, and betrayal etc., without the writer forcing it down the reader’s throat. 

In a sense, we cannot actually remove philosophy from any human endeavour. At its basic level, philosophy can simply be defined as the love of knowledge. My professor in school put it succinctly by saying, “Perplexity is the beginning of philosophical enterprise.” There will always be philosophy until humans have all the answers and writers will explore and often attempt to resolve these complex life questions. 

Davina: I really enjoyed reading The Rage of Lambs because it was like travelling back in time. Many things about Kuta’s life in Mandela High recalled similar incidents from my boarding school experience. Even your descriptions of the arrangement of the classroom blocks induced much nostalgia! I smiled when I read about the entertainment shows (we had something similar on the weekends, too). Reading the scenes and characters, I might as well have been back in my own high school. 

How much of the novel was based on recollections of your own earlier boarding schooling experiences?

Solomon: A lot was based on my experience, things I had read, and my imagination. I started writing when the military dictatorship of General Babangida closed down all universities in Nigeria, after many violent clashes between students and the military during nationwide protests, and we were stuck at home for months. Before that, I attended four boarding secondary schools in Ghana – two boys-only and two mixed. 

When I was in form one, there was a protest in school because the authorities decided that three students were going to share a can of sardines at the dining hall instead of two students splitting a can. Meanwhile, the prefects each had a can.

I must admit I modeled some characters after secondary school year classmates, schoolmates, mixed up some incidents, and copied from the general layout of two of the school campuses.

Davina: The first time I attempted to write a teenage character, my writer friend (who reads most of my drafts) wrote back to say, “This isn’t a teenager, my dearest: this is a much older person masquerading as a 15-year-old.”  

Solomon: I think the trick is to maintain consistency, and write them as close to what you once knew or now know. You already have a fair idea in your mind about this teenage character that’s, let’s say, called X. Remember a friend, classmate/schoolmate, neighbor, relative, etc., from back in the day, around the same age as the character X you want to develop.

So if X is a bully, loud talker, walks some way, looks some way, has certain mannerisms, etc., choose one of those old mates who closely or even remotely shares some of the above and focus on your memory of them and mimic them as much as possible anytime you are writing about X. That way you will not deviate too much from the personality of an actual teenager.

Davina: I’m curious about Kuta’s diction. What’s going on there? 

Solomon: It was generally agreed that the Ghanaian education system was at the very top in the 60s, 70s, and 80s in West Africa. Ghanaian teachers were a sought-after commodity in neighboring countries. So we spoke very good English during our time. 

Moreover, Kuta’s Dad being a diplomat and his mom a lawyer, too, means he came from the upper class of the society and that must influence the way he speaks. I honestly cannot say the same about the present-day quality of education in Ghana. There has been a huge decline.

Davina: I envy Kuta, Charles, and their schoolmates. I envy their self-awareness, and their political consciousness. At that age, in the all-girls boarding school I attended, it never occurred to me to make the kind of connections they make, between the indignities they suffer and the progressive putrefaction within their school’s administration.

Whenever water chucked in my high school, I didn’t overthink it. I thought that was a normal boarding school experience. I thought such hardships were meant to prepare us for adulthood; we had to be hardened and habituated for real life in the real world. 

It never occurred to me to stage ‘a peaceful demonstration’ or ‘fight for my rights.’ What rights, oba, when I considered interruptions in the water supply, and punishments that were out of proportion with offences, to be necessary rites of passage?

If anything, during holidays, I loved to swap stories with friends from different boarding schools, about the various miseries and afflictions that we bore. It was a matter of pride, I think, to establish as quickly as possible who did and didn’t have the mettle for boarding school life.

Solomon: I find it interesting that we share a very similar situation across the African continent. I mean, considering our common colonial and economic heritage, we may make that assumption. It just shows that African experiences and problems are similar. Only the way people respond and react is different. 

Growing up in Ghana, it was common for students to respond to what they viewed as unfair circumstances. It was common for students in secondary schools across the country to organize protests. The national anthem of Ghana ends with this sentence, “…and help us to resist oppressors’ rule with all our will and might for ever more.” The country’s motto is ‘Freedom and Justice,’ and we recited them twice daily, morning and afternoon, in primary school.

Between 1979 and 1992, the nation’s ‘revolutionary’ leader drummed his catch phrase, ‘probity and accountability,’ into every Ghanaian’s skull. Many former heads of state and high-ranking military and civilian government officials were executed by firing squad or served lengthy prison sentences and had their assets confiscated. The hierarchy in the school usually mirrored society with the prefects at the top eating at the ‘high table’ and getting special privileges. 

I think humans have an innate sense of injustice; only how we respond, whether we even acknowledge injustice or push it from our minds, thinking, “well this is just the way things are,” differs in different periods, environments and levels of desperation. 

The book is not just about the injustice within the school but wider society. When the students flee the police onslaught on campus to town, they are joined by aggrieved citizens chanting anti-government slogans about their economic and social conditions. So, in a sense, the school is meant to reflect society.

The extreme deprivation of the people living in an abundance of resources and a few at the top, enjoying the benefits, is a common continental dilemma – one which suggests that solutions must be integrated continentally to achieve meaningful and sustainable results. Selfless leadership is what is required. A united continental vision was already dreamt up over sixty years ago, after the independence of most African countries. 

When it comes to the endemic problem of corruption as a cause of underdevelopment, the rich upper-class like politicians, employers, and those in authority who are well-paid, are the main culprits. Blame is mistakenly placed at the doorsteps of the poor working class. But what is the cause of this particular so-called ‘working class corruption?’

When the average income of a family of four only covers the rent of accommodation and part of their feeding bills, where does the money for school fees, hospital bills, clothing, transportation etc. come from? It doesn’t drop from the skies. As the saying goes, “water finds its own level.” If a police officer or a teacher or any worker’s child is very ill and has a bill of $100 (US) to pay and their monthly wage is $300 (US), they will find any means necessary at work to pay the hospital bill and buy medicine.

Pay workers a decent living wage and put measures in place to monitor productivity. Put in a punch-clock system and pay workers per hour. Find ways to provide motivation to workers, e.g., health insurance, and increase productivity, etc.

Then there are the educational, health, justice, transportation etc. systems to be overhauled. It is going to be a long up-hill battle considering all the time lost on the continent, but we will have to start somewhere. 

However, reminiscing about your girls-only high school experiences, I think it has to do with the tendency, especially in Africa, to encourage girls not to be assertive – you know, girls must not speak up even when suffering all sorts of stuff while their brothers are allowed to. Even in adulthood, girls and women in Africa and other parts of the world are still at the receiving end of huge gender imbalances.