Book Review: Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I love that moment when you read the first sentence of a book and you know that you are immediately hooked. Your eyes widen, your hands clench the book a little tighter and you feel yourself sinking into the words... That's exactly the way I felt when I opened Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I love historical fiction and I am particularly interested in recent African history at the moment, so the fact that this book caught my eye is a no-brainer, but there is SO much more to it than that (more about that a bit further down).

Half of a Yellow Sun is set in Nigeria in the early and late 60's, before, during and a little after the civil war that ensued after Biafra attempts to secede from the rest of the state of Nigeria. Adichie takes us from the independence from Great Britain in 1960, through the military coups that follow, the rising ethnic clashes and violence (specifically against the Igbo) and resulting secession and declaration of independence of Biafra and it's struggle to survive amidst a civil war that breaks out. We follow the story through the eyes and words of five very strong characters: Ugwu, a houseboy who comes to work for the revolutionary university professor Odenigbo; Odenigbo's lover, the beautiful and well-educated Olanna; Olanna's twin sister Kainene; and Kainene's lover Richard, the Englishman who makes his way to Nigeria to write about Igbo art, and falls in love with both the country and Kainene.The story weaves through these characters lives and portrays an image of life in Nigeria before the war: the passion of the Igbo and the creation of their own state, the interactions with life in the villages, life within the urban middle-class and the remaining British ex-pats who keep themselves away from the Nigerian population, hanging on to what is left of the colony days. Adichie provides us with a beautiful story of love, hatred, war, death and humanity (as well as inhumanity).

There is no need to be interested in African history to enjoy this novel, although if you are it is definitely a must-read. Adichie's prose is pretty much sublime in my opinion - she builds such a passionate story line, and develops her characters so intensely well that you are standing there with them all the way, hurting when they hurt, laughing when they laugh, falling in love when they fall in love. My favourite character (after much deliberation) is Ugwu, the young boy who becomes an indispensable part of the family that hires him. I also love Olanna's fierce independence that is coupled with her fear of losing everything she loves... Each character is completely human, imperfect and real, I feel like there is a part of everyone in all of them. There are many difficult parts, specifically the descriptions of massacres, rape, death and starvation, but all are important in understanding the complexity of the situation and the passion of the people to be free of outside, controlling power.

I cried a lot reading this book, and it probably wasn't a good idea to finish it on my subway ride back home last night, with tears running down my face; and many a time I felt like I was being punched in the stomach, but all the same, I couldn't stop reading. I could literally see and smell the country through the words, and this is something that I admire so much in a writer - the ability to really create a world that I have never seen before right before my eyes. Adichie is only a year older than me, and I feel like she has created a beauty of a novel, set in very disturbing times. I can't wait to read her first novel, Purple Hibiscus, and her collection of short stories, The Thing Around Your Neck. So very inspiring.

More information:
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's website

Book Review: Patti Smith - Just Kids

Just Kids by Patti Smith

I own this book in it's beautiful hardcover edition and recently acquired a paperback copy, courtesy of a friend. Said paperback copy was read within 24 hours (one should probably say devoured) and marked up with my own scrawling notes in French. I feel sorry for the person who is currently reading this copy, as they are probably getting distracted every other page, trying to decipher what my notes mean in comparison with Patti Smith's text. Maybe the next reader will add his/her own comments, and bit by bit, my copy of the book will be filled with the feelings the text evoked in others? Sounds like a pretty interesting idea actually...

I've always loved Patti Smith. I've seen her perform multiple times, love her writing, her music, her personality, just everything about her. A few years ago I went to a very small venue to see Karen Elson perform and nearly had a heart attack when I realised Patti Smith was standing right next to me. Like 5 centimetres away. I told her psychically (i.e. my brain sent out a message) that I adored her, because there was no way I was actually going to be able to say that out loud. Maybe she heard it, maybe she didn't. In any case, I love her. I think I was drawn to her at first because of her very healthy obsession with Rimbaud, which is very similar to my own very healthy obsession with Rimbaud. But I had no idea how similar a lot of my interests at the age of 19 were with hers, many years before that, when she was 20 and moved to NYC.

Just Kids is Patti Smith's tale of her story with Robert Mapplethorpe, how they met, how they grew close, their relationship, their life together, amidst the world of bohemian art and music in the late 60's and the 70's in New York City. The way she describes the New York she lived in is the same as the one I imagined growing up, a paradox: gritty but blooming, urban but bohemian, dangerous but safe at the same time, ugly but beautiful... One of those places where anyone and everyone, no matter what your background, interests, faiths or nationality is, can go and blend in and find other people just like them. I don't think that from this standpoint the city has really changed (although it is probably a lot safer than it was in the 70's and the 80's). Patti's New York resembles my own New York, a place that could have been my downfall, but ended up being my home.

Patti arrives in New York without an idea of what she is really doing there, practically lives on the streets, roaming around, and finds Robert, and both become inseparable, pushing each others boundaries within the world of art and within their own world, a world created amidst dreams and reality. Patti's writing has always been poetic in nature, even her songs are first and foremost poems that work insanely well with music. There is something so innocent and wonderful about her relationship with Robert, even when she describes the days when they are without money, Robert's obsessions with displaying his darker sides through his art, their break up and all of the other obstacles that pop up along their journey together. I think the most beautiful part of the whole story is the love that they have for each other, something that everyone in this world (I hope) can relate to. Everyone wants to have a Robert or a Patti in their lives, and if you have one, cherish him or her.

When I was 19 my best friend Maud and I decided to go on a trip to Paris. It was only three hours away from Grenoble on the TGV, but a huge deal for us because we were going to be able to walk along the quais of the Seine together and visit all of the sites that we had read about in our books. Our obsession with Gérard de Nerval was so huge that we did a lot of research into finding the exact spot where he had died, so that we could visit it ourselves (the exact street does not exist anymore if you are interested). When I got to the part in Just Kids where Patti makes her way to Paris and describes how she went on a search to find the spot where Gérard de Nerval used to drink I nearly burst into tears. Gérard de Nerval! My absolute favourite French poet and writer. When she describes how Robert introduced her to Tim Buckley and Tim Hardin I literally did start crying, as these were my own father's favourite singers, and he introduced them to my mum who introduced them to me. But it wasn't just these random occurrences that made me feel so close to Patti, it was just the way her mind worked at the time, how she would react to certain situations and how shy she would feel around people and at the same time how she wouldn't hesitate to speak her mind, whether it verbally or through some form of art.

I haven't read a book where I relate so much to one of the characters in a while, and this was all the more powerful because Patti is real, and really did live through all of this. I'm sure many other people relate to her just as much as I did and still do, but what I found the most interesting was that I felt like my 19 year old self again when reading the book: well-read, shy, obsessed with 19th century literature and music, sad but happy, full of poetry and ideas and living a different lifestyle to most of my peers (apart from the group of friends I had with similar aspirations). I'm so inspired again right now. Patti's tales of how she dressed and how her and Robert would search for the right outfit for the right occasion, are so spot on, tell of a time and a place but are also completely timeless. Robert also took some stunning pictures of Patti - I actually really want to get some prints of his portraits because they are really good.

I love the fact that Just Kids mostly tells of Patti and Robert's days before they became famous, and contains a fuzzy, fairy-tale type aura around it. It remains somewhat innocent and happy, despite some of the more difficult times depicted in the narration. I also wish I had the copy of the book I had annotated now, because I had made some comments that I am sure should be in this post write now. Probably something about paradoxical decadence, or another one of those phrases I used to bandy about when I was a teenager. So there you go... Paradoxical Decadence.

Read Just Kids. It's absolutely wonderful.

Patti Smith Website