Starbook Read online

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Book One THE PRINCE CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Book Two THE MASTER ARTISTS Part One CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Part Two CHAPTER TWENTY–ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY–THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY–FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY–FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY–SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY–SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY–EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY–NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY–ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY–TWO

  Part Three CHAPTER THIRTY–THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY–FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY–FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY–SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY–EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY–NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY–ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY–TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY–THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY–FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY–SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY–SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY–EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY–NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY–ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY–TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY–THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY–FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY–FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY–SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY–SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY–EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY–NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY–ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY–TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY–THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY–FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY–FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY–SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY–SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY–EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY–NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY–ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY–TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY–THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY–FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTY–FIVE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY–SIX

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTY–EIGHT

  Book Three THE WHITE WIND CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY–ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY–THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY–FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY–FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY–SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY–SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY–EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY–NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY–ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY–TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY–FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY–FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY–SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY–SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY–EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY–NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY–ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY–TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY–THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY–FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY–FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY–SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY–SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY–EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY–NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY–ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY–TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY–THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY–FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY–FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY–SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY–SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY–EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY–NINE

  CHAPTER–SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY–ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY–TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY–THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY–FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY–FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY–SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY–NINE

  CHAPTER–SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY–ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY–TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY–THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY–FOUR

  Book Four THE ALCHEMY OF ALL THINGS CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY–ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO

  'A book that consistently operates on many levels of meaning, its apparent simplicity, in fact, part of a rich fabric of symbol, echo and allusion...Okri loves paradox, one of the striking affinities he has with Blake, and uses words to point at the hidden, the space where the sacred lives and breathes...The intrusion of humanity's inhumanity anchors the metaphysical lyricism of the book, creatively chills its enchanted air, reminds us that all the best fairy tales hold a mirror up to the darkness of the world...But it is the imaginative generosity and peculiar purity of the writing that continually touch the heart. Here is a prose with a tender tread, alive to human frailty...[Okri] seduces the reader with a rapt recounting of the infinite within the particular' Observer

  'The language of [Okri's] story is simple, courtly, timeless, childlike, beautiful...What he has created, howev
er, is a unique and beguiling world of his own imagining' Sunday Herald

  'Building phrase upon rich phrase, Okri sweeps across the whole of the mythical world he creates, yet manages, too, to hold before the reader's gaze, steadily, moment by moment, each small fragment of this reality...Welling up through this book is a sense of the sheer mystery of life, of story, of beginnings and endings... Each phrase is pregnant with possibility and magic' London Magazine

  'Each sentence is like a magical capsule breaking open with a burst of coloured light' Books Quarterly

  'Okri's prose carries off a remarkably difficult balancing act in which reality is transfigured into a prose that aspires to be poetry...like many of Okri's books it's hard to describe because of the rich, dreamlike, almost hallucinatory prose' The Sunday Times (Scottish edition)

  'This is quite, simply, a beautiful book...one that reminds us why we are all so special' Irish World

  'Readers who loved The Famished Road, which won the Booker Prize, will fall on it avidly...Okri's is an art that sometimes communicates before it is understood. It echoes the Bible in it conundrums. It rhymes like Shakespeare in its couplets. It often evokes Judaism's Book of Life. And like the New Testament, it advocates that salvation stems from pure love' Scotsman

  'This long-awaited novel from the author of The Famished Road is a bewitching story, at once old-fashioned fairy tale and modern exploration of human experience...Lyrical and intensely imaginative' Good Book Guide

  'This most simple of plots belies the extraordinary messages and hidden meanings waiting to be extracted from Okri's text...a profound philosophical meditation... this book pushes the experience of reading far beyond any usual boundaries ... passionate, moving and intense' Scotland on Sunday

  'Starbook is the book [Okri] has waited all his life to write, the completion of a story his mother began to tell him as a child...Okri considers the infection and destruction of a culture in such a way that it becomes clearly the province of art and not of history books to do so' Yorkshire Post

  'At the centre of this novel – as it has been in many of [Okri's] novels – is the noble attempt to find the Good, the starting engine for recovery and progress, and the role of the artist, the storyteller, and the imagination in the process' Glasgow Herald

  'Part mythical romance, part an exploration of freedom and regeneration, this is a rich tale with complex themes' Psychologies

  'Visionary, Utopian and magical' Western Daily Press

  'As ever with Okri, there are passages of incredible beauty' Financial Times

  Ben Okri has published eight novels, including The Famished Road, for which he won the Booker Prize. He has also written collections of poetry, short stories and essays, and his work has been translated into more than twenty languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and he has been awarded the OBE as well as numerous international prizes, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa, the Aga Khan Prize for Fiction and the Chianti Rufino-Antico Fattore. He is a Vice-President of the English Centre of International PEN and was presented with a Crystal Award by the World Economic Forum. He was born in Nigeria and lives in London.

  Other books by Ben Okri:

  Fiction

  Flowers and Shadows

  The Landscapes Within

  Incidents at the Shrine

  Stars of the New Curfew

  The Famished Road

  Songs of Enchantment

  Astonishing the Gods

  Dangerous Love

  Infinite Riches

  In Arcadia

  Non-Fiction

  Birds of Heaven

  A Way of Being Free

  Poetry

  An African Elegy

  Mental Fight

  STARBOOK

  A MAGICAL TALE OF LOVE

  AND REGENERATION

  BEN OKRI

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  ISBN 9781407022550

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  First published in 2007 by Rider, an imprint of Ebury Publishing This edition published by Rider in 2008

  Ebury Publishing is a Random House Group company

  Copyright © Ben Okri 2007

  Ben Okri has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This electronic book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found at www.rbooks.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 9781407022550

  Version 1.0

  To buy books by your favourite authors and register for offers visit www.rbooks.co.uk

  In memory of my father, Silver Okri, 1928–1998 With gratitude for the magic foundation

  Acknowledgements

  I wish to express my special thanks to the Marsh Agency,

  To Paul Marsh, Camilla Ferrier and Jessica Woollard for their tenacity;

  To Judith Kendra for her vision, and to all at Rider Books;

  To Rosemary Clunie and the ongoing alchemy.

  Book One

  THE

  PRINCE

  CHAPTER ONE

  This is a story my mother began to tell me when I was a child. The rest I gleaned from the book of life among the stars, in which all things are known.

  In the heart of the kingdom there was a place where the earth was dark and sweet to taste. Anything that was planted grew in rich profusion. The village was built in the shape of a magnificent circle. And in the centre of the circle stood the palace of the king. Four rivers met in the forest around the village. The shrinehouse was at the edge of the village and the path that ran past it led to the outside world. The forest was dense about the village, and it seemed that those in the heart of the kingdom lived in a magic dream, an oasis of huts and good harvests in the midst of an enveloping world of trees.

  There is an ancient saying in the village that my mother used to tell me. They say that it is not who you are that makes the world respect you, but what power it is that stands behind you. It is not you that the world sees, but that power. The village was small but, behind it, all around it, stood the power and the majesty of the dense forest. At night the forest was dark and rich with magic and enchantment. In the day it was lovely and of a sunlit green, and a haunting barely audible music could be heard from its earth. Gifted children often said that they could hear the trees singing charmed melodies. On certain nights, when the moon was full and white like the perfect egg at the beginning of creation, the wise ones claimed that the trees whispered stories in the abundant darkness. Those stories, they said, took form and wandered about the world and one day would take on a life of their own. The people of the village very rarely went into the forest because it was so powerful, so unpredictable, like the immeasurable mythology of an unknown god.

  Long ago, in the time when the imagination ruled the world, there was a prince in this kingdom who grew up in the serenity of all things. He was my mother's ancestor, and he alone of all the people in that village loved playing in the forest. He was very handsome and fair and bright and the elders suspected that
he was a child of heaven, one of those children from another place, who was not destined to live long. He was never so happy as when he played alone in the forest or by the river. He was a favourite of the mermaids and the mysterious girls of the forest and he took them flowers and things he had made and he played music to the spirits of the river. Because he was a child of heaven, he was left alone to do as he pleased, so long as he did not express a wish to die.

  He was a surprise to the royal family. The soothsayers at his birth predicted for him an unusual life. He will be a king and a slave, they said. He will be sold like a goat, treated like an animal, he will fight in a war, he will suffer like a great sinner, he will live like a god, and will know freedom more than the freest of men. The most puzzling thing the soothsayers said, however, was that he would die young in his old age or that he would die old in his youth.

  The elders expected him to be sickly. He never was. They didn't know whether to groom him for kingship. He showed no interest. Politics and royal duties bored him. He seemed to much prefer working with the common people in the farms, harvesting corn, teasing the maidens, building huts for the frail old women of the village, splitting firewood, and piping music around the edges of the kingdom, as if he were haunted by a sad beauty that fringed the limits of the world. It touched the hearts of the elders to see his fragile body bent to such difficult tasks he set himself, or to see his fading presence dissipate itself in the lovely music that he teased out in the dappled shadowy realm of the myth-infested forests that was his second home. What were they going to do about this royal vagabond, this noble tramp who so swayed the hearts of the women and the elders, who fascinated the young, who moved the heart of the kingdom like a string instrument plucked to perfection by a dying master? It was like watching a strange game of life and death being played out before the eyes of everyone.