унесённые ветром африки
Sep. 13th, 2008 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alcuteС Нигерией до недавнего времени у меня были связаны лишь некоторые воспоминания о студенческой жизни в ЮК: создание виртуального англо-нигерийского бизнесс-проекта и участие в нём двух чудесных нигерийских парней, Агбу и Шериффа, которые, первоначально пообещав всяческое содействие в добыче информации, самоустранились от участия вплоть до момента презентации, предоставив, таким образом, мне и другим участникам нашей команды самостоятельно разбираться в тонкостях нигерийского налогообложения и прочих... тонокстях. Тем не менее, наша Team 11 с этим самым проектом заняла первое место и оба красавца, после командного триумфа, ходили гоголями, свысока поглядывая на сокурсников.
Half of a Yellow Sun значительно расширил мои знания об этой африканской стране, и я даже пожалела, что не прочла данный роман раньше, когда была возможность обсудить его или события, описанные в нем, с упомянутыми однокурсниками. Впрочем, это не столь важно – книга сама по себе замечательная, мощная, я бы сказала, и, что важно, концовка, на мой взгляд, просто потрясающая.
Это произведение, посвященное короткой и драматической истории Биафры, повествует о вечной борьбе романтиков с циниками. Побеждают, как водится, циники, и загадочное государство Биафра исчезает с лица земли, похоронив надежды и чаяния главных героев книги и навсегда изменив их мир и мироощущения.
Так вышло, что и в букклабе мне не довелось пообсуждать роман: недооценив ёмкость произведения, я завершила читать его неделей позже, чем состоялось собрание книгочеев. Спасибо, Жаклин, одна из участниц книжного клуба, поделилась со мной взглядами на прочитанное, прислав своё замечательное ревю, которое я с удовольствием предлагаю вниманию всех интересующихся:
A Nigerian friend gave me a copy of Half a Yellow Sun last July. On the cover page, she wrote, ‘Dear Jacqui, I hope you enjoy this book (annotations are available from me!)’ Sadly that I was not quick enough to take up my friend’s kind offer. She passed away at a young age because of brain tumour in May this year.
Through the book, she took me to her Nigeria, a country I had not sought to know much before. Her unexpected death prompted me to know more about this African country, the homeland of my friend who was however born and brought up in the UK.
Half a Yellow Sun is yet another tragic story about a country that has not taken good care of her people. Personal lives are interwoven with civil war. The Nigerian writer dissects her country critically, and gives readers a glimpse of the Biafran Revolt. The story line ranges round twin sisters, Olanna and Kainene. They both received a good education in the West, notably the UK, but that did not make their fate any different from what happens to helpless illiterate women in different parts of the world. I am intrigued by the feminist side of the story. When Olanna’s lover (and later husband), Odenigbo, slept with a village girl, a situation set up by his own mother, the writer says, through Olanna’s aunt (p.226):
‘When your uncle first married me, I worried because I thought those women outside would come and displace me from my home. I now know that nothing he does will make my life change. My life will change only if I want it change. [sic]’
‘You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. … Your life belongs to you and you alone, sosogi.’
The writer continues to expound her feminist view. When Olanna is on a plane flying back to where Odenigbo was, Olanna thinks (p.328):
‘She did not have to be the wounded woman whose man had slept with a village girl. She could be a Fulani woman on a plane deriding Igbo people with a good-looking stranger. She could be a woman taking charge of her own life. She could be anything.’
However, it is through a priest, Father Damian, that the writer seeks to bring about reconciliation, as a woman might do in real life (p.230):
‘I also think that you should forgive Odenigbo.’
‘It’s not for him, you know. It’s for you.’
‘Don’t see it as forgiving him. See it as allowing yourself to be happy.
What will you do with the misery you have chosen? Will you eat misery?’
So, Olanna did not just forgive Odenigbo. She went one step further – lovingly bringing up his bastard child through the difficulties of war time!
The Biafran Revolt created many horrors. Through Odenigbo, the writer expresses her attitude towards death (p.331):
‘We never actively remember death,’ Odenigbo said. ‘The reason we live as we do is because we do not remember that we will die. We will all die.’
‘But perhaps it is the whole point of being alive? That life is a state of death denial?’
Being a ‘black’ writer, Chimamanda would inevitably brought in racism and colonialism, and sometimes there are sharp remarks. However she made it clear that the majority of whites are not to be blamed, for kinds of racism and colonialism even occur within one’s own country as in the case of the Biafran revolt in Nigeria. Through the discussion among Odenigbo, Oalnna, Kainene and Richard, the writer notes (p.402):
‘The white man brought racism into the world. He used it as a basis of conquest. It is always easier to conquer a more humane people.’ [said Odenigbo.]
‘So when we conquer the Nigerians we will be the less humane?’ Kanine asked.
And through Olanna’s comments on Kanine’s white boyfriend, Richard, the writer’s feelings are revealed (p.36):
[Olanna] never liked any of Kainene’s boyfriends and never liked that Kainene dated so many white men in England. Their thinly veiled condescension, their false validations irritated her. Yet she had not reacted in the same way to Richard Churchill when Kainene brought him to dinner. Perhaps it was because he did not have that familiar superiority of English people who thought they understood Africans better than African understood themselves and, instead, had an endearing uncertainty about him – almost a shyness.
Half a Yellow Sun allowed me glimpses of a particular period of Nigeria. To be able to understand the complexity of this country and her people will of course take much longer time and a lot of energy. But in my brief interaction with the book, I have felt the sentiments of the characters. Their love and hate are not unique, and are shared among people across cultures and around the globe, with no geographic boundaries. As flesh and blood, we cannot easily resist life’s often uncomfortable twists and turns, no matter how bitter or sweet it can be!!
Half of a Yellow Sun значительно расширил мои знания об этой африканской стране, и я даже пожалела, что не прочла данный роман раньше, когда была возможность обсудить его или события, описанные в нем, с упомянутыми однокурсниками. Впрочем, это не столь важно – книга сама по себе замечательная, мощная, я бы сказала, и, что важно, концовка, на мой взгляд, просто потрясающая.
Это произведение, посвященное короткой и драматической истории Биафры, повествует о вечной борьбе романтиков с циниками. Побеждают, как водится, циники, и загадочное государство Биафра исчезает с лица земли, похоронив надежды и чаяния главных героев книги и навсегда изменив их мир и мироощущения.
Так вышло, что и в букклабе мне не довелось пообсуждать роман: недооценив ёмкость произведения, я завершила читать его неделей позже, чем состоялось собрание книгочеев. Спасибо, Жаклин, одна из участниц книжного клуба, поделилась со мной взглядами на прочитанное, прислав своё замечательное ревю, которое я с удовольствием предлагаю вниманию всех интересующихся:
A Nigerian friend gave me a copy of Half a Yellow Sun last July. On the cover page, she wrote, ‘Dear Jacqui, I hope you enjoy this book (annotations are available from me!)’ Sadly that I was not quick enough to take up my friend’s kind offer. She passed away at a young age because of brain tumour in May this year.
Through the book, she took me to her Nigeria, a country I had not sought to know much before. Her unexpected death prompted me to know more about this African country, the homeland of my friend who was however born and brought up in the UK.
Half a Yellow Sun is yet another tragic story about a country that has not taken good care of her people. Personal lives are interwoven with civil war. The Nigerian writer dissects her country critically, and gives readers a glimpse of the Biafran Revolt. The story line ranges round twin sisters, Olanna and Kainene. They both received a good education in the West, notably the UK, but that did not make their fate any different from what happens to helpless illiterate women in different parts of the world. I am intrigued by the feminist side of the story. When Olanna’s lover (and later husband), Odenigbo, slept with a village girl, a situation set up by his own mother, the writer says, through Olanna’s aunt (p.226):
‘When your uncle first married me, I worried because I thought those women outside would come and displace me from my home. I now know that nothing he does will make my life change. My life will change only if I want it change. [sic]’
‘You must never behave as if your life belongs to a man. … Your life belongs to you and you alone, sosogi.’
The writer continues to expound her feminist view. When Olanna is on a plane flying back to where Odenigbo was, Olanna thinks (p.328):
‘She did not have to be the wounded woman whose man had slept with a village girl. She could be a Fulani woman on a plane deriding Igbo people with a good-looking stranger. She could be a woman taking charge of her own life. She could be anything.’
However, it is through a priest, Father Damian, that the writer seeks to bring about reconciliation, as a woman might do in real life (p.230):
‘I also think that you should forgive Odenigbo.’
‘It’s not for him, you know. It’s for you.’
‘Don’t see it as forgiving him. See it as allowing yourself to be happy.
What will you do with the misery you have chosen? Will you eat misery?’
So, Olanna did not just forgive Odenigbo. She went one step further – lovingly bringing up his bastard child through the difficulties of war time!
The Biafran Revolt created many horrors. Through Odenigbo, the writer expresses her attitude towards death (p.331):
‘We never actively remember death,’ Odenigbo said. ‘The reason we live as we do is because we do not remember that we will die. We will all die.’
‘But perhaps it is the whole point of being alive? That life is a state of death denial?’
Being a ‘black’ writer, Chimamanda would inevitably brought in racism and colonialism, and sometimes there are sharp remarks. However she made it clear that the majority of whites are not to be blamed, for kinds of racism and colonialism even occur within one’s own country as in the case of the Biafran revolt in Nigeria. Through the discussion among Odenigbo, Oalnna, Kainene and Richard, the writer notes (p.402):
‘The white man brought racism into the world. He used it as a basis of conquest. It is always easier to conquer a more humane people.’ [said Odenigbo.]
‘So when we conquer the Nigerians we will be the less humane?’ Kanine asked.
And through Olanna’s comments on Kanine’s white boyfriend, Richard, the writer’s feelings are revealed (p.36):
[Olanna] never liked any of Kainene’s boyfriends and never liked that Kainene dated so many white men in England. Their thinly veiled condescension, their false validations irritated her. Yet she had not reacted in the same way to Richard Churchill when Kainene brought him to dinner. Perhaps it was because he did not have that familiar superiority of English people who thought they understood Africans better than African understood themselves and, instead, had an endearing uncertainty about him – almost a shyness.
Half a Yellow Sun allowed me glimpses of a particular period of Nigeria. To be able to understand the complexity of this country and her people will of course take much longer time and a lot of energy. But in my brief interaction with the book, I have felt the sentiments of the characters. Their love and hate are not unique, and are shared among people across cultures and around the globe, with no geographic boundaries. As flesh and blood, we cannot easily resist life’s often uncomfortable twists and turns, no matter how bitter or sweet it can be!!
