Tonight’s meeting was great, plenty of discussion and
interesting, differing views. Some very personal experiences were shared and I left
the meeting really happy to have such a diverse and interesting group of
friends and readers.
‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ is one of the books on my list for
The Lotus Flower Book Club because the author is incredible and I have loved
everything she has written from her debut novel ‘Purple Hibiscus’ onwards. The
book explores Nigeria around the time of the Biafran war in the 1960s. This is
a period of history that not many people in the group knew about so it was
educational as well as drawing us in with the two central characters of twins
Olanna and Kainene.
We started by discussing the sisters and how we’d responded
to the characters throughout the novel. Olanna was thought to be immediately
accessible and many readers felt they had connected with the character early in
the novel. Kainene was more a more reserved character and because of this she
was the harder one of the two sisters to connect to. It was mentioned that it
seemed very shocking that both women lived with men out of wedlock in the 1960s
which might have been frowned upon in 1960s Britain. This lead to a long discussion
about how being rich means you have more choices; if the girls had lived in a
poor family their behaviour and views might not have been able to be so
progressive. We talked about how poverty and class has a huge effect on
morality with one group member sharing how surprised she had been when reading
about the London slums during the Victorian period and how many couples didn’t bother
to get married, how the aristocracy pretty much behaved as they liked, but how
there was a growing middle class who had a rigid morality based upon the new
example set by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The twin’s wealth insulates
them from disapproval and so have more choices than the average Nigerian girl.
We talked about beauty and how the perceptions of beauty can
affect the formation of character. Kainene knows that Olanna is the beautiful
sister, and we wondered whether this knowledge had made her more closed off,
wary and cynical, but also a very focused and brave business woman. Her lover
Richard thinks Kainene is beautiful because of her grace, her height and her
dignity but it was discussed whether he simply admired her in the same way he
admired the coiled pots he wanted to see – almost like an exhibit to represent
his romantic vision of Africa. Both sisters are very aware of custom and
expectation; Kainene knows that her parents have practically promised her to a
powerful General, while Olanna knows they don’t approve of her ‘revolutionary
lover’ either. Yet, both of them are masters of their own lives and make their
own choices of career, and in their personal lives.
We then discussed the two male characters in the novel –
Kainene’s white lover Richard who wants to write a novel about Africa and
Olanna’s lover Odenigbo, a university professor and revolutionary thinker. I
asked which man our readers were drawn to and while most chose Odenigbo there was a lot of criticism of the men and
their actions. Readers were not drawn to Richard who has a romantic vision of Africa
in his head and struggles to write his novel throughout; the snippets of a
novel called ‘The World Was Silent When We Died’ are interspersed with the
story and we assumed this is Richard’s. He is interested in the tribal aspects
of Africa, local art and seems to have an idea of the ‘noble savage’ in his
head. The other characters want to leave behind the tribal customs called ‘bush’
thinking and animism that was the tradition, but Richard is fascinated with
these customs and asks Odenigbo’s houseboy Ugwu to take him to his village for
festivals. Despite all the inspiration around him he does not seem inspired by
anything but Kainene who he falls in love with. Odenigbo was thought to be a
nicer man, mainly because of the way he treats Ugwu – he needs help around the
house but treats him with respect and Ugwu can’t believe how well he lives. He
helps Ugwu read and is very complimentary about his cooking and work around the
house. The lively evenings at the house with Olanna and all their friends from
the university were enjoyed and many readers wanted to meet some of the
radicals in the group.
The war is the great leveller to everyone in the novel. We
did not talk about the massacres in detail but we did talk about how all the
characters become equal because no one gets paid, Olanna’s bank account is
inaccessible and Ugwu becomes equal to all the others in the household;
everyone is hungry. The anxiety of becoming poorer is so beautifully expressed
as Odenigbo and Olanna move to smaller and smaller houses, with less money and
the panic of being conscripted hanging over their heads. The women seem to
become stronger as the novel progresses whereas the men become more withdrawn
and even cowardly. Some readers found the structure of the novel difficult
because the different parts don’t run chronologically. The first part was
thought to be hard going and something to persevere with, whereas once readers
reached the second part the novel seemed to flow better and kept their interest.
It confused readers that Olanna suddenly had a baby, and one or two readers
found this distracting, wondering where this baby had come from rather than
concentrating on the novel!
Infidelity was a huge issue in the novel and made up a large
part of our discussion on the night. We have the privilege of having members
from different backgrounds, from many different parts of the UK as well as
Kenya and Romania. This is great because it gives us so many different
perspectives and this really became clear in this conversation. We discussed
Odenigbo’s mother first and how she comes in and takes over the house when she
visits the home, removing Ugwu from his kitchen, taking over the cooking and insulting
Olanna to such an extent that she leaves and goes back to her own flat. We discussed
the role of the mother-in-law and how in British culture she is a figure of fun
and the butt of jokes, whereas in some parts of Africa the mother-in-law is a
very respected figure and one member discussed the story that if both your wife
and mother are hanging from a cliff, the man will save his mother. She
explained that there are some lines you don’t cross out of respect, which was
interesting to other readers who had wanted Olanna to stand up to Odenigbo’s
mother and stay. Some readers thought that if she had stayed and shown her
place in Odenigbo’s life the infidelity would never have happened. Although
Ugwu phrases his concern in a ‘bush’ way he does see the danger Odenigbo’s
mother poses to his master, Olanna and his own lifestyle – if the household is
split what will happen to his own security. He tries to warn his master of the
danger but either Odenigbo does not want to see it, or objects to village talk
of ‘dibias’ and dark spirits. Ugwu is right and when she drugs Odenigbo and
offers him her servant girl, Olanna knows immediately from his face that
something has gone wrong with their relationship.
There was some discussion about how superstition and old
beliefs cause such problems in countries like Nigeria and also how new myths (such
as the one about sleeping with a virgin curing HIV) are creating a terrible
environment for young people to grow up in. Odenigbo went down in most reader’s
estimation after this incident because even being drunk or drugged was no
excuse. It was discussed whether we were bringing western ideals into the
story, and this created an very personal and interesting discussion on how we
would personally cope with infidelity and how it can have a ripple effect,
causing problems way beyond the couple involved. In this case Olanna leaves and
goes to see her Aunty Ifeka, but is told to return to Nsukka. Her aunty tells
her that she has her own job, her own flat and must return to her life because only
she can change it. Most of the readers felt this was harsh advice and didn’t
take into account the emotions and sexual jealousy involved. However, when
infidelity is put in the perspective of other problems in Africa it starts to
look like a minor issue. We discussed the reaction to Odenigbo’s infidelity in
depth, especially Olanna’s betrayal of Kainene by sleeping with Richard. It
seemed a strange thing to do because it does not punish Odenigbo as much as her
twin and we wondered if there was an underlying rivalry between the twins that
drives this event. Maybe Olanna’s status as the most desirable twin was dented
by Odenigbo sleeping with a village girl, and she needed to regain it? Her
reaction to Baby is another surprise because having wanted her own child with
Odenigbo to take on his child from another woman is very brave and accepting of
her. Most of us were unsure whether we could do the same, but her love for Baby
seems unconditional.
Ugwu was the character most readers warmed too immediately
because of his naivety and humour. He cares deeply about the family he works
for as if they are his own and does everything to keep the peace. He wants
Odenigbo to support Olanna more with his mother, and also to support him
because he is very proud of how he looks after the master and how he cooks and
doesn’t want anyone to meddle. He finds his mistress beautiful and loves Baby.
He protects them, and sticks with them during troubles they face in the war.
The rising panic over whether he might be conscripted if he lingers too long in
the streets but makes a decision that changes his life when he is picked up and
forced to fight. We had talked for 2 hours so never got to discuss the terrible
scene with the rape of the girl in the bar. I never got to ask whether it changed
the reader’s opinion of Ugwu, but for me it typified the futility of war. Ugwu
does not want to rape the girl, but forced into it by his fellow soldiers he
joins in with the rape and hates himself. The look on the girl’s face haunts him
for life and I felt he was as much a victim of the terrible war as she was.
As usual we didn’t get to discuss everything, because there
is only so much time and we bring a lot of personal experience into the group
so we can talk about how the book affects each of us on such a personal level.
We are all looking forward to the film coming out later in the year so we can
take a trip out to the cinema and some of us are already looking forward to
reading Adichie’s new novel Americanah.
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