Nonetheless, with Kambili the author has created a compelling narrative—and a surprising punch at end. A young African voice...
Earnest debut about a 15-year-old girl’s struggle to blossom under the tyranny of her father’s—and country’s—strong arm.
Kambili and her older brother Jaja live a luxurious life in Nigeria as the only children of a powerful man. Their father virtually supports his home village, owns factories, and, most importantly, owns the newspaper that champions free speech and the rights of the people at a time when silence is far safer. Papa is a hero. But at home in their quiet marble palace, Kambili and Jaja live in fear of regular beatings: “lessons” on how to become more pious Catholics. Mama’s miscarriages are the result of these, and Jaja has a deformed finger. The three are forever in danger of breaking the rules but are never quite sure what the rules are. Papa begrudgingly allows Kambili and her brother to visit his sister Ifeoma, and the trip, the first time away from their parents, is a revelation to the siblings. Widowed Auntie Ifeoma is a university professor and mother of her own three markedly different children. Though poor, Auntie Ifeoma’s house is filled with laughter, discussion, opinions and freedom, so different from the tightly regimented schedule Kambili and Jaja are used to that at first Kambili barely opens her mouth. Slowly (and with the help of young Father Amadi, whom she develops a crush on), Kambili begins to enjoy life a little. Alongside Kambili’s narrative is a portrayal of the sad state of contemporary African politics—the poverty-inducing corruption, rioting, and uncertainty of basic needs. Like many first-novelists, Adichie tries for too much; her portrayal of Kambili’s home life is striking but provides far too incomplete a depiction of Papa. Her portrait of Nigeria is fascinating but fragmented. Auntie Ifeoma and the cousins are likable enough but not memorable.
Nonetheless, with Kambili the author has created a compelling narrative—and a surprising punch at end. A young African voice welcome to American shores.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2003
ISBN: 1-56512-387-5
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2003
A modern day fable, with modern implications in a deceiving simplicity, by the author of Dickens. Dali and Others (Reynal & Hitchcock, p. 138), whose critical brilliance is well adapted to this type of satire. This tells of the revolt on a farm, against humans, when the pigs take over the intellectual superiority, training the horses, cows, sheep, etc., into acknowledging their greatness. The first hints come with the reading out of a pig who instigated the building of a windmill, so that the electric power would be theirs, the idea taken over by Napoleon who becomes topman with no maybes about it. Napoleon trains the young puppies to be his guards, dickers with humans, gradually instigates a reign of terror, and breaks the final commandment against any animal walking on two legs. The old faithful followers find themselves no better off for food and work than they were when man ruled them, learn their final disgrace when they see Napoleon and Squealer carousing with their enemies... A basic statement of the evils of dictatorship in that it not only corrupts the leaders, but deadens the intelligence and awareness of those led so that tyranny is inevitable. Mr. Orwell's animals exist in their own right, with a narrative as individual as it is apt in political parody.
Pub Date: Aug. 26, 1946
ISBN: 0452277507
Page Count: 114
Publisher: Harcourt, Brace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1946
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.
Written with quiet dignity that builds to a climax of tragic force, this book about the dissolution of an African tribe, its traditions, and values, represents a welcome departure from the familiar "Me, white brother" genre.
Written by a Nigerian African trained in missionary schools, this novel tells quietly the story of a brave man, Okonkwo, whose life has absolute validity in terms of his culture, and who exercises his prerogative as a warrior, father, and husband with unflinching single mindedness. But into the complex Nigerian village filters the teachings of strangers, teachings so alien to the tribe, that resistance is impossible. One must distinguish a force to be able to oppose it, and to most, the talk of Christian salvation is no more than the babbling of incoherent children. Still, with his guns and persistence, the white man, amoeba-like, gradually absorbs the native culture and in despair, Okonkwo, unable to withstand the corrosion of what he, alone, understands to be the life force of his people, hangs himself. In the formlessness of the dying culture, it is the missionary who takes note of the event, reminding himself to give Okonkwo's gesture a line or two in his work, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.
This book sings with the terrible silence of dead civilizations in which once there was valor.Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1958
ISBN: 0385474547
Page Count: 207
Publisher: McDowell, Obolensky
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1958
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