Book Quote:
“I sat at my
bedroom window after I changed; the cashew tree was so close I could reach out
and pluck a leaf if it were not for the silver-coloured crisscross of mosquito
netting. The bell-shaped yellow fruits hung lazily, drawing buzzing bees that
bumped against my window’s netting.”
Book Review first
published in Mostly Fiction Book Reviews, August 2010
From the first few
pages this novel leaves no room for doubt as to how the narrative will unfold:
the struggle of the “outside” and more natural world against that of domestic
oppression and enforced sterility. As the book opens with a domestic crisis
which overwhelms the narrator in its almost silent enormity, she retreats to
her room.
The netting in the
above quote is the perfect simile for the walls and boundaries, real and
invisible, which surround the narrator. Whom do they keep out, and whom do they
keep in? In an instant, we know from this passage alone that although they may
keep the mosquitoes out, they also enforce a separation between the narrator
and the leaves and bees: a separation decidedly unwelcome.
I found it
extraordinary that the message was so clarion, as both the novel’s physical
setting (post-coup Nigeria) and spiritual setting (stringently Catholic) are
subjects I am personally completely unfamiliar with. I felt I ought to be
reading the book with a full-scale guidebook to Africa, so laden is it with
unknown phrases and concepts, scents, sounds and sights. It is proof of the
superb writing that the unfamiliar and the unknown are in no way alienating,
but entirely tantalising in a heady, spicy, dusty mix, making the uninitiated
want to touch, taste and feel what the words set before us.
The narrator is
Kambili Achike, a girl born to a wealthy family headed by her despotic and
sadistic father, Eugene. Her fellow sufferers within the house walls are her
mother Beatrice and her brother Jaja. Eugene is well respected within the
community: he donates money to churches and the poor, he runs a politically
subversive newspaper at tangible physical danger to himself and is seen as no
less than a hero. At home he enforces his will on the inmates of the house
without a chink of mercy, and with the help of torture and battery at regular
intervals.
When the two
children manage to escape from the immediate clutches of the household for a
short while to Eugene’s sister, Aunty Ifeoma’s residence, the wheels of change
start to turn. Ifeoma’s household is an almost pantomime foil to Eugene’s; they
are poor but liberated, they have fun. Once they have put the initial chips
into the glass coating that keeps the children from admitting their abuse to
anyone (including themselves, mostly), there is no return and Eugene’s family
starts to disintegrate.
While the physical
world and settings may be unfamiliar to many readers, the central core of
sadistic domestic abuse and subjugation transcends all cultural boundaries in
its immediacy and intimacy. The psychological bullying from her father produces
palpable physical effects on the narrator – she develops a fever in response to
a crisis, or her legs feel “loose-jointed.”
When she gleans some approval, the joy and relief are also physically
palpable: her mouth feels “full of melting sugar;” the abused’s gratitude for
sops of “kindness’ shown to them by their abusers. The problems of the nuclear
family are mirrored in the larger world, with the omnipotent bullies in power
invading every waking and sleeping moment of their subjects, exerting almost
complete control.
There is no doubt
that in reaching an international audience, Adichie is acutely aware that many
of her readers will be as unfamiliar with the Nigerian element (which is the
core of the book) as I am. By an impasto technique with the symbolism and
parallels, Adichie counters this problem by explaining the state within the
country with reference to the domestic situation.
Both nature and the
social structure join forces in elucidation. The sadistic “Papa” is the drying,
dust-covering Harmattan wind, the (typically female) positive forces have
moisture-laden imagery – again, juxtaposing sterility and fertility. This is a
central theme both in the family life and at the State level. The narrator’s
mother faces possible divorce and destitution for producing insufficient
children, but the fault of this lies with her husband Eugene and his physical
battering of his ever-pregnant wife.
One aspect that has
been noted to be omni-present in this book is the prevalence of food. Its
smells, textures, preparation, effect, quality, quantity, power, implications;
some readers find it overwhelming. This insistence is directly tied to the
sterility/fertility male/female theme. In Eugene’s wealthy household, food is
plentiful and good, but there is no contact with the preparation of it, no
knowledge of where it comes from. By contrast in the poor household of Aunt
Ifeoma, food is scarce and takes a lot of time and effort both to procure and
prepare, but appears to be relished more. (No prizes for guessing which is
portrayed as the happier state). Most importantly, the enforced separation
which the narrator has endured at home from the “womanly” dealing with food is
shown as a type of disabling, a condition that debilitates, a sort of
castration of abilities. Learning about food empowers the narrator much more
than merely to the extent of being handy in the kitchen. It is as if her whole
outlook on life changes (albeit incrementally) by learning how to peel a
vegetable properly. In peeling it, she learns how to peel herself, to remove
the casing to just the right degree.
This brings us back
to the walls and boundaries we started off with. The uncrossable boundaries of
the family life are admitting to the tyranny and abuse that is being inflicted.
The narrator and her brother “speak with their eyes” to each other, as they
dare not speak otherwise. As the status quo in the household starts to dissolve
under the influence of external forces like Aunty Ifoema and Father Amadi, this
method of communication becomes jammed, blocked. The change that heralds this
blockage is one for the positive, but it involves great pain. The implication
is that this pain cannot be avoided, nor will it ever be eradicated.
Here, we are taken
back to the implied view on Nigerian politics Adichie is making. Kambili is not
the only protagonist forced to embrace change. When the inspirational Aunty
Ifeoma herself is targeted as a trouble-maker by the University authorities,
she is extremely reluctant to leave the country which she loves but which
tortures her, in favour of an alien one that will offer relative sanctuary from
persecution. The argument is mooted in the household: if all the brains leave,
who’s going to pick up the pieces? For this, there is no answer.
It perfectly
mirrors the escape from tyranny on the domestic level. From the conclusions
drawn there, one can only assume that the author sees this situation as
inevitable. In the aftermath of the ultimate domestic collapse, the erstwhile
victimised members of the family attempt to rebuild a life. They have however
been permanently “expelled” from the state they had known hereto, and their
efforts are uncoordinated and wandering. The lasting blame which lands on all
of them, but particularly the mother (who has possibly been shown to have
suffered the most) is drawn with such absolute precision that it is impossible
to sidestep the implication that the wronged commoners will nevertheless carry
the burden of their oppressors with them wherever they go. Through the
telescope of the immediate and intimate, Adichie elucidates the political and
cultural situation for outsiders.
But it seems that
she has portrayed the abuser only too convincingly for some readers. Many
reviewers opine that Eugene is “not all bad” and that the family’s love for him
is “genuine.” In fact, the overwhelming majority of reviewers suggest that poor
Eugene, he’s got terrible faults but he means well, bless him. This is both a
frightening testament to how household bullies get away with what they do, and
a homage to Adichie’s skill in portraying the process. Perhaps also it is a
more reassuring reflection that the average reader is thankfully shielded from
acute domestic violence, physical and psychological. Any “love” the abuser
appears to show to his victims is self-directed, his good deeds in political
and economic circles are all salves to his own background of abused childhood
and repressed impulses. The abuser cannot see his family (and by extension,
anyone who comes within his field of power) as anything but reflections and facets
of himself. They have no rights or individual standing in his view, and as he
forces his own view onto his victims, his view becomes theirs. This is not to
say that Eugene does not suffer for his misdeeds: the disfiguring rash that
keeps coming up is like a reflection of the myriad wrongs he has inflicted,
which no amount of dabbing away with money will erase – and his body knows it,
even if he doesn’t.
But by the very
process that she has created to explain the Nigerian situation, is seems
Adichie might have overdone herself. The excuses which so many readers see in
Eugene’s behaviour make the politicians by implication less culpable, and the
love of their subjects less conditional. I am sure Adichie’s message is that
patriotic love should be conditional, and if the relationship between state and
citizen turns abusive then those conditions should be enforced, even if the
citizens feel pain and regret at the process.
In a final
reinforcement of the parallel, Kambili’s hidden talent which emerges towards
the end of the narrative turns out to be:
running. The symbolism is not veiled. From a domestic situation like
hers, the best one can do is run, as fast as possible. Perhaps this is what the
writer feels is the ultimate fate of the Nigerian people.
(First published in Mostly Fiction Book Reviews, August 2010)
