There's a big divide between black and white America and whites don't know it. White people can guess, become educated, become lovers and friends withThere's a big divide between black and white America and whites don't know it. White people can guess, become educated, become lovers and friends with black Americans, but they (we) will never experience what it's like to be wished dead at every turn. As Williams puts it, "I have seen their faces; they are faces out of nightmares--so ordinary--so ordinary that you can't believe the brains behind them capable of genocide."
Narrator Max Reddick is an eminent novelist and journalist, a World War 2 vet, a sometime ex-pat, a consummate professional who does what's needed and more to get the story--rides in a General's jeep in the Congo; joins the guerillas on a skirmish in Angola; sharpens his pencils and applies seat to chair to get the words out. His novels thud into the night with little impact. Only one black author is allowed the spotlight at a time. We see Max work, talk with friends, travel, meet women, fall in love or conduct satisfactory transactional one-night stands. He's sick, wounded, vulnerable, carries physical pain with him everywhere, every decade. It's fascinating to revisit the fifties and sixties with him, with its swirl of pan-Africanism, African independence, Brown v. the Board of Education, the Kennedy administration. Max meets the elite of leftist literary, civil rights, and black political circles.
It's compelling, fascinating. The novel takes place on a single day when Max attends his old writer friend Harry Ace's funeral in France; Max's ex-wife in Amsterdam; and Harry's lover, also in the Netherlands. Everything else occurs in flashback, but you hardly notice it, so seamless are Williams's transitions. All along, the reader feels the weight of race, the burden of it, through Max's mind, something that his white wife doesn't always get, and the fact that she doesn't notice is a huge gulf between them.
Sociologically, historically, culturally rich, some of the characters are understood to be based on real people such as James Baldwin, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. If this were all the novel was, it would be enough. But when you reach the end, you realize that there's more here than you realized. As Walter Mosley writes in his introduction, there is "another level to the book, another novel buried inside the vignettes and subplots. Another story was unfolding while the bittersweet pain of Max and his friends took the limelight." It "cannot be contained...[in] a single reading."
I don't know if I will reread it. Time gets shorter for me every day, as it does for us all. As a human being, I'm taking a voyage on a river. Books drift past and there are so many to pull out and read. The book was hard for me to get my hands on--the copy I'm reading is from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Memorial Library. But it's going on my private list of books worth a second read....more
This novel follows successive generations of two branches of their foremother Maame's family--one stays in Ashante land, the other is shipped to AmeriThis novel follows successive generations of two branches of their foremother Maame's family--one stays in Ashante land, the other is shipped to America. The story is told in alternating chapters that span history from 1775 to the present. I frequently consulted the family tree helpfully provided at the beginning of the book to keep characters and their parents and children straight. At first it seems that each character is described only to detail with whom and under what conditions they reproduced, but along the way we get a sense of village life in what is now Ghana, the intermarriage between English colonizers and slavers and African women, as well as the changes in slave laws in the U.S. and what it meant for the African Americans who lived in those times. The stories told are fascinating, the characters sympathetic and interesting. The book could have become Michener-sized, as each chapter only whetted my appetite to learn more about the people I met. My thanks to the St. James Book Club, who selected and made this title available to me....more
Adichie argues that feminism is simply a quest for equality in treatment between men and women. The examples she provides from her life in Nigeria ar Adichie argues that feminism is simply a quest for equality in treatment between men and women. The examples she provides from her life in Nigeria are compelling. ...more
It took me awhile to start enjoying Wainaina's memoir. For one thing, I thought that it was a novel and I kept waiting for the plot to start. This wasIt took me awhile to start enjoying Wainaina's memoir. For one thing, I thought that it was a novel and I kept waiting for the plot to start. This was my error, since "a memoir" is noted in the right corner of the book’s cover.
Wainaina grew up in Nairobi, Kenya. Both his parents have college educations. After independence, the country invested heavily in education and built schools all over the country, making higher education accessible to masses of young people who were previously shut out of it. Wainaina starts out writing in a style that is impressionistic, with many sensory details, and sentences that are not sentences but words strung together in the way that a child might speak. This both slowed me down and drew me in. His writing throughout is multilingual, including bits and pieces of Swahili (I can only assume, since he states he speaks no other African language) scattered among the English.
This is a feast of history, biography, culture, and politics. Based on my stereotypes of African literature, I expected something terrible to happen to Wainaina sooner or later. Though terrible things happen in the nearby countries Uganda and Rwanda (his mother’s family lives on that border), and there is political violence in Kenya, our narrator escapes physical harm. Wainaina has a wonderful ability to get along with others and one of my favorite sections involves him partying with strangers in a rural pub when he briefly worked as an agricultural agent.
Wainaina’s memoir identifies tribalism as the country’s curse: it inflames passions, leads to killings, underlies political corruption, and impacts each individual. He manages to stay aloof from identification politics due to his multinational family background. Though Kikuyu, he does not speak that language, and his name, which comes from his mother’s father, does not readily identify his tribal origins. This disadvantages him, something he is keenly aware of as a child when he doesn’t get into a top school despite his superior academic record. As he gets older, though, he refuses to play along when others demand to know his affinity. By then, the writer in him—the one who observes all—has established itself.
I had no idea that I would enjoy this book when I started it, but it is beautifully written, and Wainaina’s journey to becoming a writer is really interesting, mostly because there are so many halts, and troughs, and false starts to it. This is a good book for anyone to read, but especially for young people who are struggling to find their place in the world. Wainaina describes so well how difficult that process can be and yet how the low periods somehow also show the path to take.
From the opening pages, when Jeebleh, a long-time exile, leaves his airplane upon arrival in Mogadiscio, Somalia, and witnesses the random shooting ofFrom the opening pages, when Jeebleh, a long-time exile, leaves his airplane upon arrival in Mogadiscio, Somalia, and witnesses the random shooting of another passenger and comprehends the danger inherent in all choices he makes, he is assailed by unbearable stress. Mogadiscio is a land in which almost no one can be trusted, where kidnappings and murders are simply part of the day. The opening chapter describes Jeebleh's journey from the airport to a hotel, and its intensity makes other novels purporting to describe similar border crossings into dangerous global hotspots, such as those found in books by John Le Carre, seem dull. Jeebleh quickly learns how to navigate Mogadiscio's complex and lawless society, where someone who bullied him as a child has amassed power as a warlord, where his movements are constantly monitored, and where people hide their names and their past identities, making his encounters constantly puzzling and fraught with fear. Jeebleh determines two projects for himself: one is to find two kidnapped children and to reunite them with their parents, long-time friends of his. One child has Down's Syndrome, the other is attributed other-worldly powers; simply being in her presence is considered protective. The second goal is to find his mother's grave and to honor her memory. He is changed by the city and by the company he keeps, a small security force whose heavily armed presence begins to feel empowering and seductive. Still, Jeebleh notes small signs of normalcy within the chaos, such as men lining up at the barber's for shaves and haircuts. The value of friendship, as well as its limits, is well depicted here. This novel is a visit to a place most of us would not care to visit; to go there and survive is an accomplishment. We don't know the long-term impact of living through this hell on Jeebleh or his compatriots, but the character of Raasta, the divinely touched girl, is one form of hope. ...more
Listen! The Wind tells the story of Charles and Anne Lindbergh's 1933 survey flight when they charted air-routes over the North Atlantic. The book covListen! The Wind tells the story of Charles and Anne Lindbergh's 1933 survey flight when they charted air-routes over the North Atlantic. The book covers their experiences crossing between Africa and South America in the plane Tingmissartoq and is divided into three sections: Santiago (Cape Verde Islands), Bathurst (now called Banjul, Gambia), and the flight to Natal, Brazil.
The landing in Santiago was difficult. Porto Praia would have allowed them access to a seaplane base, but there were no harbors nearby and the force of the waves made it impossible to land. Instead, they found a sheltered harbor about thirty minutes away (by car) near an abandoned French hangar. Their two hosts, both unnamed, "the Chef" and his sixteen-year-old wife, "the girl," tried to provide Charles and Anne with the highest level of hospitality possible, though that involved dust and bed-bugs, and the two North Americans preferred to sleep in their anchored plane. The coffee was excellent. Anne describes a moment of compatibility between herself and "the girl" while they sit on a porch step, waiting for their husbands on a pitch dark night.
The final section tells about the aviators' trip back to the Americas. Anne gives a lyrical description of a night flight. The entire book is literary, but this section is particularly well-written and rhapsodic.
I found the book interesting for its insights into the Lindberghs' pilot/co-pilot relationship and the history of flight (it exposes a bit about colonialism, too). This was Anne's second published book, after North to the Orient ....more
I admired the main character Anna/Ella at first. At least I found her interesting, insightful, and intelligent. But by the end of the book, I did not I admired the main character Anna/Ella at first. At least I found her interesting, insightful, and intelligent. But by the end of the book, I did not understand her motivation for sleeping with men. It seemed that if they wanted to, she complied, regardless of her own instincts. Plus she did so much cooking that they took for granted! In all fairness, her life as a "free woman" resulted in a state of temporary insanity at the end of the novel. Still, it's fascinating to read about the sexual attitudes of middle class and leftist intellectuals before the second wave of feminism. Single women were simply "fair game" for married men in those days. Though Anna/Ella wasn't chained to the home, at some times in her life she was a prisoner of sex.
I also found Lessing's discussion about communism and progressive leftism to be as interesting. The novel takes place in the 1940s and 50s and is set among communists who have varying levels of skepticism, cynicism and loyalty towards the party. They resemble a church group, in which members are expected to adhere to a certain dogma, but as individuals wildly divergent in their beliefs and denial. The possibility of leaving the fold is a constant temptation. The novel presents leftists as people who seek purity and disinterestedness in society that is contrary to what has ever been and what will ever be. That's why even sweeping counter-cultural movements are doomed to fail--their goals contradict human nature. However, I think Lessing suggests that fights against specific types of injustice, such as the color bar in South Africa/Rhodesia, are worthy endeavors, not because they change the world for good forever, but because the amount of injustice can be diminished.
Lessing's universe in The Golden Notebook is populated by characters who show all the frailties of humanity, especially greed (for power and control over others) and lust. After reading the novel for the second time, I feel that I understand humans better and am less disappointed in them. That may be one reason why this book lives so large in the twentieth century canon. It enlarges the heart, not by appealing to idealism, but by exposing reality....more
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