‘Domesticating infinity’ in Ben Okri's Mental fight and Astonishing the Gods

Abstract

The argument of this article is predicated upon the notion of temporality as a state of becoming within the stillness of time and connected to the chosen literary texts, where the text is ‘a pragmatic assemblage or tool kit of becoming’ (V. C. Leitch, 2001. The Norton anthology of theory and criticism, 1594). This article begins by exploring the pertinence of its title in a reading of Astonishing the Gods ([1995] 1999) inspired by Ben Okri's poetry anthology Mental fight (1999). The notions of ‘timelessness’ or ‘domesticating infinity’ are discussed – tacitly acknowledging Alexander Gunn's (1929. The problem of time, 54-355) triple definition of eternity as an unending extent of time/timelessness/and that which, while including time, somehow transcends time – before an exploration of the mode of the novel is undertaken. The choice of a transdisciplinary speculative African fable in the philosophico-theological mode is supported by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's critical theory of rhizomatic ‘becoming’ as opposed to ‘being’ (Leitch 2001,1594), which, in turn, dovetails with Lubomir Dolezel's (Heterocosmica [1998]; 2000) notion of heterocosmica, stated more simply as an infinite possibility of worlds. The main thrust is a critical analysis of the narrative, contingent upon a paradigmatic shift from the tree image of Western knowledge to the root image of rhizome literary theory, coupled with a ‘possible worlds’ frame, showing how Astonishing the Gods postulates a philosophico-theological new civilization (akin to the Blakean ‘New Jerusalem’), synchronizing Okri's philosophies of temporal mysticism and a spiritual cosmogony derived from the esoteric Perennial Tradition.