Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche

What an incredible experience this book is. Nike yourself. Just do it.  Close this blog, go buy it and read it.  Simple, my work is done.  And do NOT … do what I did.

I made the catastrophic bad choice of looking on Amazon to see what 'regular folks' thought of it; and of course, like a kid picking a scab, I had to read what the people who 'one-starred' it had to say.  (why do we do things like this... there were lovely, extensive discussions by people who adored the book ... nope, I went right for the haters...  we'll have to look into that at some point).

The most reasoned 'slams' seem to be centered on a dislike for the central character, Ifemelu.  That she 'felt nothing' and was 'not relatable' and variations on that theme from just Ifemelu, to every person in  the book (okay, those were less well reasoned, I grant you).

I was not aware that stories had to be filled with likable people, the world sure isn’t.   So this wins ‘most stupidly staggering assertion’ for the week.   (Even though in the introduction the author TELLS YOU "A novel with a female character whose rasion d’être is not likeability")

I can remember telling Tony once that some scenes had be acted by ‘skating lightly over the top of them.’  This was because there was so little story, so little development of character or anything else that a touch of indifferent irreverence was necessary in order to make the exercise watchable.   If there is a polar opposite to that statement, it is every single person in this book, from Ifemelu, to the supernumeraries that float in and out of the margins of the story, each realized with a crystalline clarity of heart and mind; their lives continue past the confined edges of the book pages, because they are drawn from real life, and are real.

There’s some snark in the comments about the blog posts; the blog posts are utterly critical to this book; just as you are about to drift dreamlessly into the love stories and wrap yourself in the characters, the blog comes along and forces a deep sense of PLACE and TIME.  It does not permit the reader to forget this story is about the ugliness and despair of the real world; it may be a novel, but the reality can never be escaped, or lost; it is fairly clear that that reality may not change until centuries have passed. 

It is of despair and despairing, of love and loving, of race and humanity.  

And, screw them (and the author, if that’s what it takes).  I LIKE Ifemelu. (And that’s not being “kind”)

-30-