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Chairman of Fools
Shimmer Chinodya
2005: 210 x 134 mm
ISBN 1 77922 041 3

Reviewer: Wonder Guchu

Chinodya on dysfunctional middle class

There is a vast difference today between Shimmer Chinodya’s earliest works and his latest books, especially Can We Talk and Other Stories as well as Chairman of Fools. Chinodya’s earliest books - Dew in the Morning (1982), Farai’s Girls (1985) and Harvest of Thorns (1989) deal to a large extent with childhood experiences. In Dew in the Morning, Godi’s parents leave the city of their rural area where the boy finds it difficult to adapt to the new way of life. As a result, Godi undergoes a stressful period as changes takes place in the village. For the first time, Godi “discovers” ghosts and witches.

Farai in Farai’s Girls is a teenage boy, who like any other teenager, falls in love with a number of girls. The story basically is about growing up and the confusion relationships cause.

In Harvest of Thorns, Benjamin Tichafa goes to join the war of liberation after expulsion from school for taking part in a demonstration. His actions were his own way of rebelling against his parents’ strict Christian beliefs. With Can We Talk and Other Stories, a different Chinodya emerges – this time it is not the child but an educated African man who is struggling to reclaim his identity, to reassert his authority over his wife and children and a man who thinks he can drink his problems away.

It is this theme, Chinodya expands in Chairman of Fools where an educated middle class prominent author and professor slides into madness when he fails to manage his success, marriage and life. Incidentally, in Chairman of Fools there is Farai Chari just like the naïve Farai in Farai’s Girls. Here is a very successful writer who has won many awards and travelled greatly lecturing in universities abroad.

He has been in the media and is a revered man who should be a role model for the youths. Married to Veronica, the couple has two children, owns a house in one of the middle-class suburbs and is doing well – well almost except that Farai and Veronica have drifted apart. Veronica converts to one of the many Pentecostal churches that are strict and to while away time, she embarks on studies and belongs to a group of well to do widows who discuss money and sell each other peanut butter.

Theses activities widen the rift between husband and wife. They do no talk tot each other. They keep their businesses a secret from each other. When they sleep, each takes to their own side and makes sure there is no physical contact. When they talk, it is superficial and circumstantial. But with time, the emotional neglect triggers psychological imbalances in both husband and wife. Veronica leaves home when Farai returns from the US where he was lecturing. She takes the children with her. Farai tries to drink this away but in the end both emotional neglect and alcohol take their toll on him. He ends up in psychiatric ward where he is elected as chairman of fools.

His condition is known as bipolar disorder, which causes unpredictable mood swings and extreme mood shifts. This condition develops during adolescence and childhood and is characterised by episodes of depression, mania or mixed depression, which quickly recurs causing unnecessary disruption to school, work and social life.

Written almost like the way Farai left his life in the story, Chairman of Fools is about you and those who think they have arrived, by earning generous salaries, drive posh cars and lives in quiet neighbourhood where grey pre-cast walls conceal marital problems.

It is a true story of the many husbands who first visits the bars before going home and of wives who have turned themselves into ardent born-again Christians. This is the story of madness that pervades today’s marriages that are bound by sound financial standing and not by the heart. It is about pretence as the accepted way of life where two people brought together by fate put up with each other because as a born-again, the wife cannot leave and because of tradition, the husband cannot walk out. This then becomes a recipe for madness.

The vividness and the intensity with which Chinodya wrote Chairman of Fools is close to the way Charles Mungoshi approached Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuva and Kunyarara Hakusi Kutaura? Farai could be Rex in Ndiko Kupindana Kwamazuva while Veronica could be Rindai. While it took the death of their daughter for Rex and Rindai to realise the folly of pretending to be husband and wife, it takes a mental breakdown for Veronica and Farai to realise the damage their relationship is causing to each other.

This is one book Shimmer Chinodya has written from the heart.

© The author/publisher