Half of A Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Family and friends struggle through the Biafran war

Wealthy western educated twin sisters Olanna and Kainene, and their partners, Odenigbo and Richard, join the infant state of Biafra, formed by the Igbo people of eastern Nigeria after an ethnic massacre. But things don’t go so well after civil war erupts and Nigeria blocks food shipments across the border. The four of them, along with sensitive houseboy Ugwu, must bid farewell to their affluent lifestyle and come to grips with war and privation.

This reminded me a little of War and Peace: the happy life, the transforming upheaval of war, the heroism found in unlikely places. The ambition and the quiet artistry. Adichie is a great storyteller – the tale moves right along, although the different time frames of the story confused me at first. She does a good job of tightening the noose, making the reader dread what will happen next and be unable to turn away. It’s historical fiction, but it’s also about the folly of the human heart and how easily things spin out of control.

The center of the story is Olanna, the beautiful twin, lover of the charismatic profession Odenigbo and sister to severe silent Kainene. Kainene doesn’t seem completely fully developed, that’s why it’s a little hard to figure out why anxious Brit Richard is so in love with her. The use of food to illustrate how far these Igbo professors have fallen works really well: the descriptions of elaborate dinner parties in the first part of the book, coupled with the meals of roasted insects and lizards in the last part of the book.

At times, because of the subject matter, that is, the bombing of starving children and the way the world ignored it, the book grew excruciating to read.  Americanah was more relaxed, messier and more fun. This was formal and deadly serious.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

 

 
A young Nigerian woman emigrates to the United States, then, after several years, returns home

Ifemelu, a good student, almost on a whim applies for a US visa and gets it, moving in with her vivacious Aunty Uju who scrambles to make a decent living. At first, life in the United States nearly overwhelms Ifemelu, then she thrives and starts penning a tart-tongued blog. Meanwhile, back in Nigeria, Ifemelu’s school days boyfriend, Obinze, who has always longed for a life in the States, is unable to get a US visa and smuggles himself to London where he takes menial jobs, leaving in fear and observing how his fellow countryman change for the worse after their arrival in the West. Obinze is deported, returning to Nigeria a failure. However, because of lucky contacts in the booming country, he becomes a wealthy man, with a submissive exquisitely beautiful wife. He and Ifemelu don’t keep in contact, but after her return to Lagos she watches with bemusement the newly prosperous society and reunites with Obinze.

At almost 600 pages, this novel made no bones about its ambition, attempting to say something about Nigerian society, American racism, romantic love and hairstyle choice. Where the novel really worked was illustrating both Ifemelu and Obinze’s despair at having to take humiliating jobs in order to eat, as well as their intelligent analyses at how the people around them behave when confronted with poverty and racial differences. What was particularly successful was the depiction of
Ifemelu's growing consciousness of the concept of “race.” She arrives in the US as an immigrant wondering why all the black Americans are obsessed by race and then begins getting obsessed by race herself because white people are unable to refrain from making every single social interaction about race.

This was a good book, consistently absorbing, though only in the last few pages did it fully commit to be a love story, and that love story’s fraught conclusion was squished into the end. I’m not sure I even fully bought the idea of crotchety Ifemelu paired with serene Obinze. But just as the conflict about his wife and child starts to come to a head, he ups and leaves his wife. It made me think a little worse of him.

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Can you ever really leave home?

These stories were about Nigerians (mostly woman) either trying to figure out American culture or figure out African men or endure the violent ineptness of Nigerian governance.  The newfound wealth of Nigerian society is often in the background.  Adichie is a great story teller, full of humor, although not far beneath the surface is an underlying anger about the injustice, corruption and violence.  Men hold the power in Africa, and many of the stories conclude by the female main character either fleeing or rejecting the male value system. Though fleeing does not always make for a satisfying ending and a few of the stories were weakened by the neat ending, the slick twist. The only outright angry story is reserved for one about the English guy running a conference of talented African writers – in the workshop he forces his simplistic romantic stereotype of the African native over the writers’ personal pain, their personal story.

The best of these have to do with family. I really liked The Headstrong Historian, which worked on two levels. The first was a story of a mother and grandmother’s love and the second was a pocket history of Nigerian colonization and the vitality of native culture. Cell One, was an indictment of Nigerian corruption, a glimpse into the bad things upper class youth are doing, but at its core it had a universal theme of a family mourning a son gone wrong. There’s nothing they can do to help.

I also liked A Private Experience about an educated Christian girl taking shelter in a riot with an uneducated Muslim woman. Also, I liked Ghosts, about an old man recalling the Biafran conflict. A matter of fact presentation of horrible events. These stories were gripping, completely enjoyable.