The book has beautiful, readable, flowing prose; a pleasure to read and very easy to consume in large quantities. I read the book quickly and rarely found clunky or discordant passages. If I compare the book to Under Half A Yellow Sun, I preferred the domestic setting and subject matter of this book. Perhaps the drama of the Biafran war and the rather jarring plot development somehow detract from the prose in Under Half A Yellow Sun; in any case, I found this a smoother and more tranquil narrative environment in which to appreciate her writing.
The theme of the ever-dissatisfied, international and multicultural child is very well developed and was probably the best and most interesting part of the book for me. Even more so than race, which would be the obvious front runner! The sense of growing up with the understanding that opportunity and success lie outside of your own country is very well portrayed. Ifem is the most obvious example of this. She doesn’t like Nigeria growing up and longs for the imagined lustre of foreign lands. She doesn’t like America when she gets there but equally doesn’t like Nigeria when she goes back because the US has changed her. There is a sadness to this. It feels like these children have been raised in an environment and pushed into a lifestyle where they feel like they don’t belong anywhere. The best example of this is chapter 48 when Ifem goes to the Nigerpolitans meeting and simultaneously scorns the other members’ infatuation with foreignness while realising she is no longer a ‘local’ Nigerian like she used to be. Most of the cast of characters is touched by this theme of migration, cultural transition and identity. It contrasts well with the more gossipy sections about Ifem’s friends in Lagos or her relationships. The end of chapter 29, when Obinze goes to the dinner party in London with his old friend Emenike who has attempted to transform himself into a posh British person, is depressing as it shows Emenike as ashamed of his past and who he is. However, I felt there was an interesting counterpoint to this in Ifem’s own attempts to maintain her identity while living in America; she consciously tries to retain her African accent. Ostensibly, this is admirable compared to Emenike’s total transformation but isn’t it really the same thing in some sense; a wilful effort to be different from how you would be naturally? Here I find concepts of identity and their “naturalness” very hard to pin down because who can be said to be totally “natural”? I feel everyone is trying to be something different from what they are at some point in their lives. Especially when they’re moving between cultures and growing up at the same time. Nonetheless, I found Ifem’s attempts to continue to speak with a Nigerian accent a bit forced. As someone who has experienced unwanted changes in their accent growing up I would question: 1) how feasible it is to control something you use as frequently and subconsciously as your voice and 2) how much a person’s accent would really change at her age anyway. Whatever the case, I feel like this detail is included to illustrate Ifem’s desire to stay connected to her roots alongside blogging about her experience of being black in America and her hairstyle choices. To me though it also asks the question, is Ifem actually creating something false in her attempts to remain authentic? Another interesting strand of the theme of identity and transition is the idea of being a middle class illegal immigrant like Obinze:
Alexa, and the other guests...all understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape from the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness. They would not understand why people like him, who were raised well-fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced that real lives happened in that somewhere else, were now resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped, or from burned villages, but merely hungry for choice and certainty” p276
The whole section that follows, about his attempted sham marriage and eventual deportation, is very good too.
Certain scenes and moods are captured brilliantly and one that stood out for me was the time around Obama’s Presidential campaign. The ambience of hopefulness and then outright elation on election night is very well depicted. She also links it in well with the narrative, describing the positive effect this general mood of euphoria had on her waning relationship with Blaine. This part is very good and rings true (Chapter 40).
At its worst points I wondered if the book was quite superficial and gossipy in a kind of trashy soap opera way. One example is the description of a man at a party:
“It was Sterling, the wealthy one, who Blaine told her came from Boston old money; he and his father had been legacy students at Harvard. He was left-leaning and well-meaning, crippled by his acknowledgement of his own many privileges. He never allowed himself to have an opinion. “Yes, I see what you mean,” he said often.” p323
I found this throw away section about a totally inconsequential character disproportionately distressing! Moreso for the tone than for the prose or the non-existent plot implications. Isn’t this shallow, judgemental gossip; quick to size someone up and dismiss them someone based on two or three facts about their life and a huge amount of arrogant, unnuanced conjecture?! Or is it simply good, colourful background? I felt it had the flippant, glib manner of Hello magazine or some similar society chronicler and didn’t like it at all. I’m aware this seems a bit like making a mountain out of a molehill but for some reason this particular passage seemed to encapsulate a certain tone within the book that I didn’t care for.
There is no denying there is a snarky and unpleasant side to Ifem. Sometimes she seems to think of herself as the archetype of decorum and deportment; criticising both the US and Nigeria while she floats about in some elusive culture that allows her to judge everything while never making herself the subject of criticism. Her blogs could be portrayed as patronising, simplistic and arrogant; generalising about groups of people numbering in the tens of millions using only the scant experience of a foreigner living in the US for a few years. There’s certainly a “know it all” tone to the blogs, which you can find evidence for in any post. However, I think this characterisation goes too far as it is necessary to generalise to have meaningful discussions about slippery and complex issues like gender, race and identity. Ifem’s blogs can be haughty and draw wide ranging, unwarranted conclusions from scanty evidence but they are also relatable, fun, readable, and, most importantly, promote a discussion amongst the other readers online. Overall, I thought the blog was a good device that brought a lot of interesting material to the book in an enjoyable format. I should also point out that Adichie doesn’t let the blog go totally uncriticised in the book. Ifem’s friend Ranyi makes a good critique of Ifem and the way she invades her privacy by blogging about her, which also addresses the problem of Ifem critiquing all cultures but not really belonging to any of them at the end of chapter 50. The blogs seem to say a lot in support of the kind of woman Ifem is being portrayed as in the book, a feminist, someone who reflects on inequality and its historical causes, someone trying to be a force for goodness and fairness in the world. In this way, Blaine seems her most natural fit as a partner but she says she finds him almost too worthy and kind and doesn’t love him. The argument they have about lying shows Ifem in a far worse light than Blaine, although he is a little theatrical and passive aggressive in not speaking to her for days, and she seems to drift away from him for no particular reason.
I found the later portrayal of Obinze very confusing and problematic. All the prose about him is misty eyed and dreamy and Ifem’s recollections from their youth make him seem kind, gentle and effortlessly cool. He is certainly painted in sympathetic colours during his failed attempt at marriage and deportation from the UK. However, the grown-up Obinze is a corrupt ‘big man’ who drives around in a black Range Rover with a chauffer. He calls other rich Nigerians “thieves or beggars” (p429) but we know he got his start hanging around one of these thieves or beggars and being sycophantic. You also have to assume that he is corrupt if he is a successful real estate developer in Nigeria given the importance of government permits and approvals in that business. So where does he derive the right to look down on other people when his own wealth comes from the same tainted source? All this is lost in breathless whispers about how he works out and salivation over his wealth and success; it’s all a bit sickening. The fact his academic mother, one of Ifem’s heroes in her youth, disapproves of his money and won’t use her gift of a new car provides some very mild criticism but really there is almost no critical reflection on Obinze's wealth, which is a startling contrast to the rest of the book. On the whole, the tone of the book seems to be that it is OK for Obinze to be rich from corruption because he is the kind, caring, capable lover of Ifem’s youth and now that he is prince charming come to save Ifem’s heart his riches will help them to live happily ever after. Is social awareness being sacrificed for romance because traditionally the lover is rich? It also makes me wonder about how likeable a character Ifem really is. She doesn’t seem at all bothered about pursuing Obinze despite the fact he is married and has a child but is so judgemental of her friends who do the same thing. She seems to recieve pretty positive treatment throughout, as with most protagonists, and the access we are given to her inner thought processes, unlike other characters, make us more sympathetic towards her and make her actions seem more reasonable. Nonetheless, I found myself with more sympathy and respect for Kosi, Obinze’s wife and mother of his child. She barely makes an appearance in the book but, like Obinze’s friends, is prepared to look past his infidelity if he continues to keep the family together. This idea appears to be given short shrift by both Obinze and Ifem and is portrayed as ‘traditional’ in a kind of backward way, which is not at all what they want for their shiny, all important, all encompassing love. However, I find Kosi’s forbearance of Obinze’s adultery for the sake of her child worthier of respect than Ifem’s duplicitousness.
If I think about the book as having three broad strands, which is undoubtedly simplistic and misses out a lot of other great aspects of the book but has the advantage of clarity, I would identify race, middle class expatriate Nigerian life and Ifem’s love life as the three main themes. In the main, the first two are very successful but the love story seems all a bit out of kilter to me. Ifem seems to make odd, maybe I mean slightly unbelievable, romantic decisions like cutting off all contact with the love of her life when she moves to America ostensibly because she got paid $100 to give a man a handjob and let him finger her? Of course, depression and self-loathing are powerful things and can more than adequately account for her erratic behaviour. I still couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Ifem had severed contact rather brutally with Obinze bearing in mind the feelings she had for him. He dotes on her during difficult move to America, providing emotional support, sending money and telling her that he loves her. She seems to reciprocate and so I thought she would at least make up an excuse to console him in some way or spare his feelings. Perhaps it is simply too hard for her and this is completely understandable. However, given the magnitude of the decision it isn’t analysed or explained in any great detail. The same can be said for the ends of all her relationships. Ifem’s break up with Curt is unusual too as she doesn’t even seem that into the guy she cheats with but justifies it by saying deep down she did it because she really wanted to be out of the relationship. However, then there are weeks and weeks of tears and banging on his apartment door, apparently?! These big decisions are confusing but are glossed over so quickly while other sections, about time spent with the boyfriend, interactions regarding race or observations about expatriate life are far more descriptive, detailed and languid in their pace. I felt Ifem’s love life could probably do with some more depth and internal monologue, especially in the case of Curt, as I was a bit lost about the motivations for some of her romantic decisions. To be sure, matters of the heart are often complex and unclear even for the person experiencing the feelings of love! So it’s unreasonable to ask for clear explanations for all of Ifem’s actions. However, I felt like there wasn’t enough as much time spent on these interesting transitions, in and out of love, as they deserved. This problem was compounded by my dissatisfaction with what I felt was the general message of the love story.
The most unsatisfactory aspect of the book for me was the ending, which sees Obinze declare his love for Ifem and her welcoming him into her flat in a teary eyed scene redolent of Love Actually. But surely this is a shoddy end for a book that is so acutely socially aware in other places and for a woman like Ifem, proclaiming her progressive views through her blogs? Both Ifem and Obinze leave Nigeria “mired in dissatisfaction...hungry for choice and certainty”. Most development experts would tell you this poverty of opportunity comes from corruption, a lack of competition and dearth of strong, independent institutions. These are at least some of the reasons why they can’t realise their material dreams at home and have to go through the difficult and sometimes traumatic ordeal of emigrating described in the book. Unless there is a deeper desire to go abroad, motivated by feelings of inferiority, the roots of which cannot be laid so squarely at cronyism’s door. For me, the book showed the primary motivation as seeking a better life with higher standards of education, more choice of career and better prospects for children with feelings of inferiority to, or fetishisation of, the West a far weaker motivation. At least in the cases of Ifem and Obinze. So, I wonder why Ifem’s getting together with a married ‘big man’ who derives his wealth from corruption is the cause for such tender treatment and apparent celebration from Adichie. I also expect better from Ifem, who is portrayed as a moderniser and a force for progress, slipping into exactly the kind of relationship she criticises among her friends. The book may also be criticising this type of relationship quite harshly via the character of Dike, Ifem’s Aunt’s son from an illegitimate relationship with an army general who attempts suicide, but this criticism isn’t explicit and I may be overstretching. It seems to me like their love story cements the status quo; corrupt ‘big men’ run Nigeria and women run around to please them in whatever way they can. This is a truly astonishing message to be found in the work of Adichie and there is, of course, an alternative explanation. This would seem to me to be love and this would make sense as the book is clearly, in part, a love story. If this is true, then I am being far too sceptical and reading far too much social commentary into a situation where the author never intended there to be any. Nonetheless, in my defence, it’s undeniable that the book as a whole contains lots of social commentary. Viewed in this light, the story is very romantic and idealistic with the sheer power of Ifem and Obinze’s love filling in any possible cracks. For instance, if he loved her so much why didn’t he search for her when he went to America? Or, if he is prepared to cheat on his wife and child now, won’t that mean there’s a risk he’ll do it again? Or, what does it tell you about a person’s character that he makes huge amounts of money from corruption in a poor country? It’s all a bit much for me to have such a questionable situation shot with soft focus lenses while the string section plays in the background. Why draw such attention to social issues like race, identity and immigration and show them in all their ugliness while leaving the equally important issue of corruption and inequality in Nigeria depicted in broadly positive terms as it makes the love story more dreamy and happily-ever-after? It’s such a glaring oversight to me I can barely believe it didn’t occur to the author. She even has Obinze criticising the rich people in Nigeria as ‘thieves and beggars’, I mean, come on! It might be slightly better if he had made his money in something vaguely socially responsible like micro-finance. However, Adichie goes out of her way to show him as corrupt and for that reason I don’t like the nostalgic treatment of their love story. Is the book’s concluding message really supposed to be, “no matter how much time you spend abroad or how much you try to challenge existing norms and change your aspirations; you will eventually behave in the broadly the same way because you’re Nigerian and Nigeria will stay the same”? It beggars belief in an otherwise highly socially aware novel and really spoilt the book for me.
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