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Feb. 6th, 2013 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI read Half of a Yellow Sun a few years ago and was completely unable to talk about it adequately. The short version is that it's a novel about the Nigerian Civil War in 1967 and the establishment of the short-lived Republic of Biafra, and about the people whose lives get caught up in it.
I remembered this when I read Akata Witch recently, which has a scene where the protagonist is hanging out reading some Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and I was like "hey! Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has this whole other novel that's supposed to be great that I've never read, why did I not do that?" And then I tried to find my booklogging post on Half of a Yellow Sun to remember plot points that I forgot, and couldn't find it, and had a short panic attack that maybe I had hallucinated reading it and loving it, and then it turned out I had just misspelled Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's name in tagging, because I'm a genius. This is why I do these booklogs: because if I don't externalize my memory, it all turns into mush within a year.
Anyway this seemed like a sign that it was time to read Adichie's Purple Hibiscus, and also reread Half of a Yellow Sun.
Purple Hibiscus is ALSO really good and, again, I don't really know how to talk about it adequately. It's a much quieter and less sweeping story than Half of a Yellow Sun; the narrator and protagonist is a girl named Kambili, the daughter of a Nigerian newspaper publisher who is extremely philanthropic, extremely devout, and extremely abusive. Kambili is not rebellious; she can't fathom being so. Her mother doesn't seem to be. Her older brother, Jeje, is starting to be. Her aunt, a professor with a much-loved brood of teenaged kids, thinks that all of them should be. And everything plays out with quiet, intense complexity from there.
So basically: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is fantastic, and ON A MORE SHALLOW NOTE, anyone who has already read Half of a Yellow Sun, there is a movie being released this year?! I had no idea! But Chiwetel Ejiofor has basically been my mental image of Odenigbo since I first read the book. And Nigerian novelist Biyi Bandele is writer/director, and basically I'M REALLY EXCITED (though dang is that going to be a hard movie to watch . . . or to convince anybody to go with me to see.)
I remembered this when I read Akata Witch recently, which has a scene where the protagonist is hanging out reading some Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and I was like "hey! Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has this whole other novel that's supposed to be great that I've never read, why did I not do that?" And then I tried to find my booklogging post on Half of a Yellow Sun to remember plot points that I forgot, and couldn't find it, and had a short panic attack that maybe I had hallucinated reading it and loving it, and then it turned out I had just misspelled Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's name in tagging, because I'm a genius. This is why I do these booklogs: because if I don't externalize my memory, it all turns into mush within a year.
Anyway this seemed like a sign that it was time to read Adichie's Purple Hibiscus, and also reread Half of a Yellow Sun.
Purple Hibiscus is ALSO really good and, again, I don't really know how to talk about it adequately. It's a much quieter and less sweeping story than Half of a Yellow Sun; the narrator and protagonist is a girl named Kambili, the daughter of a Nigerian newspaper publisher who is extremely philanthropic, extremely devout, and extremely abusive. Kambili is not rebellious; she can't fathom being so. Her mother doesn't seem to be. Her older brother, Jeje, is starting to be. Her aunt, a professor with a much-loved brood of teenaged kids, thinks that all of them should be. And everything plays out with quiet, intense complexity from there.
So basically: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is fantastic, and ON A MORE SHALLOW NOTE, anyone who has already read Half of a Yellow Sun, there is a movie being released this year?! I had no idea! But Chiwetel Ejiofor has basically been my mental image of Odenigbo since I first read the book. And Nigerian novelist Biyi Bandele is writer/director, and basically I'M REALLY EXCITED (though dang is that going to be a hard movie to watch . . . or to convince anybody to go with me to see.)
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Date: 2013-02-06 11:28 pm (UTC)MOVIE!
But what if not good movie?
MOVIE!
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Date: 2013-02-07 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-06 11:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-07 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-07 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-07 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-07 03:15 am (UTC)Half of a Yellow Sun was so epic that I too have no coherent words to describe it. I want to reread it too, just to finish processing.
I also loved Adichie's short story collection The Thing Around Your Neck, but I haven't gotten around to reading Purple Hibiscus yet.../adds to wishlist
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Date: 2013-02-07 03:39 am (UTC)I haven't read The Thing Around Your Neck; I'm torn between reading it immediately and saving it until the next time I remember how awesome Adichie is.
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Date: 2013-02-07 06:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-07 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-02-07 07:17 pm (UTC)Btw, when I followed Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to other books, I found African Love Stories, which is really good for getting a taste of various female authors from different African countries.
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Date: 2013-02-07 09:00 pm (UTC)And oh, that sounds great - thanks for the rec!