The Novel Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie a review.
Meeting Ifemelu at the African
Hair braiding salon at Princeton is an invitation to a world of objectivity, a
life of a person who isn’t the conventional kind of person and makes no effort
to becoming it. Maybe this might be the reason numerous readers of the novel
feels she possesses a superhuman kind of power, like a wand with which she gets
what she wants, when and how she wants it but this isn’t entirely true about
Ifemelu at least not the Ifemelu I know or I met. That Ifemelu is human as
human can be, no exaggeration because there are many Ifemelu’s existing on
earth space though we may not have had contact with many or any at all. Ifemelu
isn’t self sufficient, she is only vocal. One who damns the consequences and
say that which bothers her anyway, regardless of what might happen next and I think
that’s courage. It shouldn’t be a rare kind of courage though, but in a society
where women are conditioned to not be opinionated hence they become
unmarriageable we can then look at Ifemelu and be wowed, you know like “that’s
rare” but it isn’t.
The ordinariness and humanity of Ifemelu
is littered around the story. How she falls helplessly in love, how she
experienced depression, fear, curiosity, pain, anger and everything every human
person feels but something special about Ifemelu is how she handles this
situation, this life circumstances and many times she needed validation from
Aunty Uju, Blaine, Dike, Curt, Ceiling,
her friend from secondary school who went to America before her. And I like
that she doesn’t throw pity party for it like many will want to when these
things happen to them, but knowing that life is yours and you make out of it
what you want to make out of it then you can look at Ifemelu and not judge her
so much for responding the way she did. You can see her humanity, her
humanness. You can look through that opinionated lady and see her frailty that’s
if you look closely though. Ifemelu like other Nigerian who had been groomed in
the societal expectation of Nigeria has that inherent ability to mask. And how
she could mask. That she wasn’t depressed during the times she experienced
countless turn down for job interview. And when she went to meet that coach who
touched her for a hundred dollars I nod my head for the first time sighting
humanity taking toll on her. She’s no superhuman. And curiosity is one thing
she had, and I think every human does but it depends on how one is able to
manage theirs. When Ifemelu slept with her neighbor because she was curious
about how he’ll look like on bed I had a mixture of anger and being astonished,
and would have screamed at her myself if I could get to talk to her. Whilst
Ifemelu feels like she had this disorder of being suspicious to happiness I know
what was really wrong with her. Humanity. She loved Obinze and had always
carried that personal guilt of ridding him from her life the way she did.
Americanah is political. Yeah that’s
how best I can summarize this book. It is very non fictitious with characters
of fiction but reading through Ifemelu’s blog and all that discussions you can
see that this isn’t a story of mere imagination. It’s political, because it
showcases American’s politics of racism. The politics of living in denial of
the obvious, you know, trying to make plaques look like it isn’t or at worse it
is really not as dangerous as it is posed to be. It unveils the hypocrisy
American whites wears as cloak, and I like the objectivity and provocative
nature of Ranceeth. Living in a racist America as a non American black. Americanah
takes you through a firsthand tour of the everyday America and kind of prepare
you to what to and what not to expect as black, Hispanic, colored, Indian
sharing the same geographic space with white Americans. And I like that Adichie
spared nothing in telling the real story just as it is, and because many of Ifemelu’s
friends made it look like that wasn’t the whole truth or it isn’t as terrible
as her blog poses to be you can be convinced of the reality of it. It’s like
every oppressor you know, every misogynist, abuser et al to say, “Oh it’s not
as bad as they say it is” or “can we just talk about other urgent things
because this is slowly fazing off” but we know it isn’t fazing, it is here, it
always was here, and the other important issue they bring up is nothing compared
to the gravity of damage this thing that we aren’t supposed to talk about is.
And I like her vehemence, giving you no
option but to either like or dislike her stand, agree or not agree and by the
way, I said Americanah is political so that you know you do not really have to
like or not like it but agree or disagree with it. Agree that America’s racism
has in no way diminished, the media had only stopped talking about it on the
excuse of there are other pressing issues. And blacks will never never have the
kind of rest whites, American whites have in America. There’s the power of
focus the media has that kind of make things appear or disappear because they
are afore in playing with the minds of people, so I don’t think that Ranceeth
should have posted things other than aggressively speaking out about racism. If
it makes you uncomfortable then maybe you should just say well, I’m part of
those who wants to live in denial and disagree. There’s no middle ground of
toning down, or balancing or anything of sort.
Americanah encapsulates life in
Nigeria also, and I like that the book settles the myth many Nigerians have as
touching homosexuality, of it being a western craze or at best new invention of
the westerners that saw the light and began destroying the life of young people
since 2014. It did shine light on Men
sleeping with Generals for Oil block the first of writings in that line I stumbled
on. And Emenike’s British friend Philip who was effeminate and Ahmed friend’s
driver who identifies as Economic
homsosexual what I came to find that it is men who aren’t naturally
attracted to men but won’t mind a play or two for the money. Something striking
about her revelation of a hypocrisy home to Nigerians, where there is this
intolerance of Nigerian gay men but this open embrace of white gay people or
gay people in western world under the guise of, ‘that’s them’ and I think it
stinks. Yeah. It many times makes me think that black people are more racist
than white, will I say being victims of racism has so affected their mind,
choice, preference and acceptation of things. Sometimes I look at the Higher
institution system of Nigeria, of the constant abuse and humiliation Nigerian
students suffers in the hands of their lecturers to the extent of being denied
their basic right because they are students and I ask, will this black lecturer
do the same thing, say the same thing and act the same way if an American white
is schooling in Nigeria? A typical Nigerian will not allow their young address
them by their first name even with a title of respect ‘auntie or brother’
attached to it, this same people crosses the continent and all of a sudden are
cool with and find it thrilling when a young white wave them and say, Hey
Adams. And there is this fluttering in their stomach that gives them a sense of
being woke even though they’ll normally cringe if the Hey Adams is coming from a Nigerian. So it is like, we have our own
culture and idea of morality that is us specific instead of being a general
yardstick. And in the words of Chimamanda, if you hate something when a
particular group does it and is cool when the same thing is done by another
group, you do not hate the thing per se, but the group. So I like that that
hypocrisy even though not pronounced is included in the book. How Emenike who
participated in the lynching of a gay student in secondary school is all of a
sudden cool with one in his circle of friend abroad. Yeah, it is so Nigerian. And
I won’t take the pain of including again what I wrote about Economic
Homosexuals, Economic Whores, Economic Adulterers, Economic Fornicators, you can find it on my blog. It’s worth the read I tell you. And do not just read,
tell me what you think about it.
Society changes people and you’ll
really really need to have self confidence that’s somewhat above the normal to
exist in a society and maintain your chore values. When Ifemelu finally applied
relaxer to straighten her kinky afro I was like, “she’s not really that
opinionated is she?”
If there’s a movie adaptation of
the book Americanah that has so many sex scenes I will not be freaked as I was
when I saw that half baked, poor rendition of the novel half of a yellow sun
where the opinionated Odenigbo that exudes wisdom and intellectual prowess and
his diehard lover Olanna where reduced to sex addicts, people who only have sex
for a living and does nothing else. I was glad I read the book before seeing
the movie. And my only advice to you is that you don’t judge that book by that
film because the film is just completely waste of effort. But Americanah has so
many sex scene. It commonizes sex and that’s revolutionary. The protagonist
have sex with whoever she wants to, with no consequences like our natural world
poses, and it’s controversial as it is daring. I’m surprised Ifem never caught
STI more surprised only Curt called her a bitch. And I think I see that thing
Adichie talked about when she said in Dear Ijeawale of not demonizing sex. How
people sexuality or sex urge do not define them. Ifemelu had so much sex but
she wasn’t defined by it, she was productive, intellectual, good in what she
does. And somehow I felt glad that many people will read this and see that
really we can separate sexual life from human life. I visualize a time when our
dignity will be hinged on personal success and not a hypocritical sanctimonious
life of vain chastity. Where regardless of the activeness of our sexual life,
people will not be dehumanized or praised because of their active involvement
or abstinence from sex. As long as protective measures are still in place. I
really wish those days will come and come quick, where a person’s personal
dignity will not be ridiculed based on their sexuality, sexual activeness. And
since literature shapes thought pattern, maybe just maybe it will happen. That
a woman can be as sexually active as the male and not be queried.
There’s something I wrote about
Ifemelu and Obinze’s love. read it here.
I’ll write other article based on
my findings from the book, but for now I just want to give a general review of
Americanah. You will like the book, it will stir up some thoughts, and pretend
that what you’re reading is fiction, because it is not.
Chines Zoe!
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