Do you consider the linguistic choices made by Amos Tutuola in the Palm Wine Drinkard...as a marker of style or an assemblage of error

The writing style of Amos Tutuola defies description; it has to be experienced to be understood. That being said, it is obvious that he does not speak traditional English. In fact, this book is written in a sort of "New English," which is commonly spoken in Tutuola's area. The sentence structure is haphazard, tending toward incredibly long sentences. The grammar and punctuation are equally random. Tutuola uses very unusual phrases, so that sometimes his meaning is a very unexpected image; whereas sometimes, any sense of meaning is just lost. This book is based on the Yoruba tradition of storytelling, which involves a speaker "performing" a story for an audience that participates in the telling. Unfortunately, the exotic, conversational style of the storyteller comes across poorly in print. The story sounds all right if the reader can imagine an old Nigerian person excitedly telling it to children around a fire, trying to scare them into being good. The repetitions and casual mistakes can easily be attributed to a narrator who is half distracted by watching the children. If the reader forgets to imagine this, the story reads like something written by a child, or by someone who learned limited English by reading a textbook. It almost needs a translation.