Book Review: The Girl With the Louding Voice

 By Abi Daré

• Pub Date: 2020

• Genre: African Literature

• Where I bought this book: Lores Untold Books & Gifts, North Vernon, Ind. 

• Why I bought this book: I was on a tour of independent bookstores, and this one was in the owner's house, so I had to support it  

• Bookmark used: Ordinary Equality/Advocating for gender equality    

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    When we first meet Adunni in her small village in Western Africa, she is happy, idealistic, and striving to educate herself so she can realize her dream of becoming a teacher of other young children.

    But then her beloved mother dies, her father sells her as a child bride to a village elder, and she later becomes a house maid to a vicious business woman in the sprawling capital city of Lagos.

    Adunni doesn't like her lot, and while she tries to obey her elders, keep her mouth shut and do as she's told, she cannot help herself. She's determined. She's eager to learn, to listen, to read and write properly, and to speak with her "louding voice" -- one that will be heard.

    This is a daring novel, a devilish debut by a voice who rightfully demands to be heard. It opens up a world beyond our pale, as seen by one who has lived through its beauty and injustices.

    Adunni is our guide and our hope. She shows what's going on in her life and the world beyond as she experiences it. At 14, she's young and innocent, living a happy if hard life. Her mother is her hero and protector, and she learns and plays happily with her friends in her village. But there are signs of despair -- her father is often portrayed as an unhappy alcoholic, and her family life is simple but sometimes desperate. 

    The writing is exquisite. Adunni is a child, with a child's uneasy grasp of English as her second language -- her native tongue is Yoruba. The early chapters show what appears to be a different dialect, and she makes tactical errors that recur. But it's easy to read, and with we see her improvements as she struggle with words, tenses, and the idiosyncrasies of English.

    It's also bursting with emotions, as Adunni seeks to overcome her fears, find friends, and recognize kindred spirits. It's a coming-of-age story set in another country. As it tells Adunni's stories, it also helps us find love, understanding, and acceptance.

Book Review: Glory

  By Noviolet Bulawayo

• Pub Date: 2022

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio 

• Why I bought this book: I like fables 

 ******

     I really, really wanted to like to book. Tholukuthi, I wanted to like this book. But it took my slogging through some 325 repetitive pages, with too many words, tholukuthi, and a writing style that carried around too many blending ideas and voices, before I found it.

    It's difficult to say it was worth it. But two parts of the book -- one in which Destiny finds her mother's past of being a victim of violence linked with her own similar history, and a second in the final 70 pages, which featured the hope of butterflies and some extraordinary writing -- made me rethink all the thoughts I had while reading it.

    It's a tale of Zimbabwe, an African country that suffered colonialism and white minority rule before a revolution threw out the white overlords but brought in a murderous, native dictatorship. The persecution and disappearances of the population continued, with the government of Black nationalist  Robert Mugabe becoming increasingly more vicious and corrupt over his 40-year dictatorship.

    This fable shows the country as literal animals -- Mugabe is the Old Horse, whose presence strikes fear and loyalty among the population of goats and chickens and cats and all manner of insects. His army of Defenders are brutal dogs that attack and kill without warning or remorse. The majority animals are poor but loyal to the ruler, wearing his image on their clothing and waving the proper flag of the Country Country.

    All of this mimics the history of the land in the south of Africa, which during colonialism was called Rhodesia -- named after the rich English lord who invaded and declared the area part of Britain. If that's not the most colonial thing ever, I'm not sure what is. After World War II, the rulers declared independence from Britain, and, looking to neighboring South Africa, set up an apartheid-like state.

    The book begins with Old Horse celebrating his 40 years of power, and moves on to the coup that tossed him out and took over his rule. But it is a verbose story, told through a multitude of conflicting and confusing voices. It's often unclear what the animals represent -- someone from the Seat of Power, the Resistance, the Dissidents, the Sisters of the Disappeared, or just random citizens.

    The writing includes repetitive words, phrases, entire sentences. Some chapters, tholukuthi, include long-winded descriptions that go on and on and on and on and on. And there is the use of tholukuthi, a word of African origin that means -- seemingly, whatever the author wants it to mean. It's an interjection, a hallelujah!, a "really, really," an "and so," a "you'll find that," and is used so many times it means all of them, and none of them.

    Bulawayo even uses a social media style to tell the tale. But even there, the streams of Twitter feeds are as disembodied, annoying, and incomprehensible as the real ones.

    When one overdoes a stylistic point, it loses its magic.

    That's what happens here. In the later quarter of the book, the tone changes, becomes more personal, and focuses on a single family of animals, including Destiny and her mother, Simiso. This is where I started enjoying the book, and eagerly read the pages. But the writing still overwhelms the ideas and actions. The repetition and overwriting stand out and get in the way of the story.

    When she writes about the genocide that occurred, it's hard to read -- because it's true. I stuck through the book until the end, and I'm glad I did. It struck a chord in me. It touched me. It taught me something.

    It also showed me what this book could have been.

Book Review: The Gloaming

   By Melanie Finn

• Pub Date: 2016

• Where I bought this book: Roebling Books, Covington, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: Gloaming is one of my favorite words 

 *****

    Let me tell you about how I first came across the word gloaming. I'm an old baseball fan, and one of the old baseball stories I read early in life is about "The Homer in the Gloamin'"

    Gloaming is the twilight of the day. In his recent book, Lark Ascending, Silas House has his character use the word. A second character expressed ignorance, asking what it meant. She told him. He asked why she didn't just say dusk. She responded, correctly, that "the word gloaming is so much lovelier." 

    Anyway, baseball. Back in the 1930s, most ballparks did not have lights. Wrigley Field was a case in point -- indeed it was the last modern park to put in lights, in 1988. So the park was dark at night. But late in the 1938 season, the Cubs and Pirates were in a pennant race, with the Pirates half a game ahead of the Cubs. So game 2 of their series would determine which team moved into first place. 

    The game was tied. As nighttime approached and the ninth inning started, the umps said that if neither team scored, they would rule it a tie. And since baseball did not allow for tie games, it would be played all over the next day as part of a doubleheader.

    Top of the ninth, the Pirates failed to scored. Bottom of the ninth, the first two Cubs went hitless. Gabby Hartnett, the Cubs player-manager, was up, and down to his last strike.

    He hit the next pitch into the bleachers, and as he ran the bases and fans swarmed the field to celebrate the victory and move into first place, a reporter for the Associated Press started writing his game story. He dubbed Hartnett's blast, "The Homer in the Gloamin'" 

    So, the legend lives on from the banks of the lake they call Michigan.

__________________________________

    Ok, now about the book, which is not about baseball, and has neither a pennant race nor a home run. 

    What it does have is some good stories and  decent writing. It starts slowly with a series of flashbacks and present time settings. 

    Bit I am somewhat uncomfortable with her settings in Africa, where her descriptions portray a continent of dirty, backwards, violent people. It's the story of a white savior.

    The protagonist and narrator, Pilgrim Jones, is a white woman who has traveled the world with her husband, a human rights lawyer. We learn this, and why, over time. We also learn that while traveling in Africa, she simply decides to abandon her companions and stay in a country village.

    The explanation comes through as she meets a series of characters, most of whom are more interesting than Pilgrim. They all have backgrounds of trauma or bad choices -- and some have both. The first half of the book tells the tales from Pilgrim's perspective, while the latter part reveals details of the rest of the cast.

    The second part is infinitely better. Some of the tales are about people people causing pain and living with it, or perhaps seeking and finding redemption. Others are those who choose to be called victims, but find ways to go on -- or not.

    It hard what to make of this book. Pilgrim's character almost feels like a cliche, a trope. The others are more real, if a mite exaggerated. 

Book Review: Call Me Cassandra

 

• Author: Marcial Gala 

• Translator: Anna Kushner

• Where I bought this book: The Strand, New York City

• Why I bought this book: The author's character says he is literally Cassandra

*******

      Mixing ancient Greek myths with recent Cuban history, this slim volume (just 211 pages) packs in history, culture, and literature.

1. It features Cassandra, one of the best known mythological characters.
2. It's historical fiction from the mid 1970s, an era rarely covered.
3. It was originally written in a foreign language and has an international theme.
4. The story's plot includes several Greek gods and goddesses, including Athena, Aphrodite, and Zeus, whom the main character refers to as "father Zeus" and "Zeus who reigns on Olympus," among other epithets.
5. It's a literary masterpiece, entwinning visions of Greek mythology with escapism and anti-war fervor, and transgenderism with patriotism and finding oneself. It blends death and re-birth by metaphor, allusion, and complexity.

    But that complexity, and a writing style that rambles in and out of the past, present, and future, from dreams to reality to apparitions, make it a difficult read. Parts of the book also include disturbing descriptions of abuse, including sexual abuse. 

    Raúl Iriarte is a young man growing up in revolutionary Cuba, in the small town of Cienfuegos, with an abusive father, a depressed mother, and a dead aunt. He's small, thin, light-skinned, and blond,  likes to read, and is regularly bullied at school. He likes to dress as a woman, which his mother encourages because he resembles her dead sister. He knows he is the reincarnation of Cassandra, and has the same gift of prophecy as she did. But he tell no one the latter, because, well, he's Cassandra.

    As he turns 18, he's sent off with the Cuban forces to intervene in the civil war in Angola. There, he is maligned and abused because of his looks, his effeminate natures, and his perceived homosexuality. 

    A key scene in the book is a Cassandra narration about the troops cleaning their weapons and singing a corrido, a Mexican ballet that commemorates a tragic event.

Then they move on to I'm leaving your county, and they finish with the part that goes goodbye, lady, / goodbye forever, goodbye. I'm listening to them from here, Zeus, from the earth where I lie, dust among the dust. That corrido has been with me since we were getting ready to disembark in Angola. It was our true national anthem. We sang it when we were able to score some rum, or high-proof alcohol, and if we couldn't score, we sang it, and now, under the African sun, where we are already aware of what it means to be at war, what it is to shiver feverishly with a thirst that won't go away, what it is to carry fear the size of an enormous house, we sing it now too.

     It sums up the tangled relationship of emotions, fears and contradictions of the characters. Emotions about family. Fears about the future and one's place in society. Contradictions about country and patriotism. 

    From the Achaeans invading Ilios because of a perceived slight from a member of its ruling family, to the Cubans meddling in the internal affairs of Angola, Raúl/Cassandra melds past and present, self and society, and existence and displacement into one provocative book.

Book Review: The Last Barracoon

 

•  Author: Zora Neale Hurston

• Where I bought this book: National Museum of African-American History and Culture, Washington. 

• Why I bought this book: While doing research on Hurston, I found I wanted to read her books. This was a good start.

********

 

   The protagonist in this book is known by several names -- his African name and his slave name, which is the name he adopted for himself. But it is only because of Hurston's persistence that he gets to tell his story, although the books wasn't published until 2018.

    And it's a story that needed telling. 

    It's a horrific, devastating story about the last newly enslaved men, women, and children who were captured in Africa and sold in America. It's how, despite all odds, Africans have survived despite bigotry, hate, and oppression.    

    He was known as Olulae Kossula -- the English spelling is a transliteration from his native tongue -- the name his mother called him and that he used in Africa. But in America he became Cudjo Lewis -- a combination of his African name and a corruption of his father's name.

    He was born in 1841in the West Africa town of Banté, a member of the Isha group of the Yoruba people. In 1860, a group of illegal slave traders came to his area, and -- with the help of some tribal enemies called the Dahomey -- captured him and a number of his neighbors. Bear in mind that Cudjo had no idea what was happening, and when shoved into the hull of a slave ship, had no idea what was happening to him.

    Ultimately, he was taken to the United States by the Meahers, Alabama brothers who enslaved people, and he was owned by Jim Meaher. After freedom, he lived in Africatown, which the former slaves built themselves on the land of their former plantation, which they had worked and saved to purchase.

    The story is told mostly in Cudjo's voice -- with his dialect and pronunciations as close as Hurston can transcribe. It is moving and compelling. It is overall horrifying, sometimes angry, often sad, and exhibits a loneliness that he felt near the end of his life. Some of its accuracy -- particularly how much is Cudjo's words and how much is the author's -- has been questioned and defended. But the overall story is factual.

    It tells of confusion and despair. It shows how men, women, and children are ripped from the only lives they've known -- their family, their culture, their liifestyle -- and dropped into a hellhole. They are not told what's happening, are literally treated like cargo, then dropped off in a strange land and told they must now work for strangers or be beaten and tortured.

    But it shows the utter joy that Black people experienced when they learned they were free.

Know how we gittee free? Cudjo tellee you dat. Da boat I on, it in de Mobile. We all on dere to go in de Montgomery, but Cap'n Jim Meaher, he not on de boat dat day. Cudjo doan know (why). I doan forgit. It April 12, 1865. Da Yankee soldiers dey come down to de boat and eatee de mulberries off de trees close to de boat, you unnerstand me. Den dey see us on de boat and dey say, 'Y'all can't stay dere no mo'. You free, you doan b'long to nobody no mo'. Oh Lor'! I so glad. We astee do soldiers where we goin'? Dey say dey doan know. Dey told us to go where we feel lak goin', we ain' no mo' slave.

Book Review

 New York, My Village, by Uwem Akpan

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio
• Why I bought this book: It has a map

****

    My indelable memory of the Biafran War is the Catholic Charities "relief campaign" that used pictures of starving African children with bloated stomachs to raise money.

 

   That's it. I knew nothing about the reasons for the war, or even where in Africa Biafra was.

    So I was hoping this book would help me learn just a little bit about the war, and just as important, what happened and what is happening now. 

    It kinda did. But it also taught me the war has a long background, involves colonization and other crimes committed on the African peoples, and pretty much boils down to why any war is fought -- hatred, discrimination, jealously, and control.

    Briefly, and I hope I get this right: Biafra is a small province in the south of Nigeria. Northern Nigerian tribes, particularly the Hausa-Fulani, dominated. In 1967, representatives of the Igbo tribe in southern Nigeria, based in Biafra, claimed they controlled the south and proclaimed their independence.

    It did not go well. There's a reason you don't hear of Biafra anymore. It's no longer a country, and hasn't been since 1970.

    In this fictionalized account, Ekong Udousoro is a book editor, and he receives a fellowship to intern at a small publishing company in New York City. He is part of the Annang, who also lives in southern Nigeria, but have had little control to the dominant Igbo. Or as Ekong puts it, his group is a minority within a minoiry. 

    This book is an account of his months learning the book publishing industry, coupled with memories of the war -- which actually happened before he was born, but which has shaped his family, his village, and himself.

    But it's also about his family relationships -- which are confusing; his troubles and joys adapting to living in Hell's Kitchen -- ugh! far too much information on bedbugs and his problems with them; his relationships with his landlord, the man he is subletting his apartment from; the racism he confronts on the job and in book publishing; his difficulties getting along with his new neighbors, and much, much more.

    It's really too much. He covers too many issues, confusing us on many occassions, and spends far too much time on the damn bedbugs. (And even when you think he is done with that, they come back! I was ready to toss the book across the room at this point.)

    Still, at its heart, the book's theme is about how we complicate our lives by dividing ourselves in too many groups -- by color, ethnicity, religion, jobs, community, and so much more. In short, perhaps we are all minorities of a minority.    

Book Review: Girl, Woman, Other

Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernadine Evaristo

    This book is additional proof that the Booker Prize never leads you astray.

    It also shows the benefits of reading literature.

    The 2019 winner of the British-based prize, by Evaristo, an Anglo-Nigerian writer, was cited for "a gloriously new kind of history for this old country."

    Indeed. These seemingly random, but ultimately interconnected profiles of women -- mostly of color, but young and old, cis and trans, gay, straight, and bi -- are a wonderful collection of tales from groups who seldon are heard from and less often listened to. But these women deserve to be seen and heard, and noticed.

    And they are. And it is good.

    These vignettes tell the stories of women's lives. They demand that people like me -- a white, older male -- listen to their struggles and their success. The show me their cultures -- old, new, and joined. 

    Some show why they left their African or Caribbean homes for a difficult if more prosperous life in England, and how they fought to survive, adapt, yet hold on to their past.

    The descriptions connect mothers and daughters, or grandmothers and granddaughters, or descendants to their ancestors, and show us the lives of several generations. 

    One woman clings to her Nigerian heritage, but has no plans to return to her native home. Despite the racism and the poverty, her home and her life are now in England, and she cherishes being British. Another dreams of returning home, but cannot see a future for her there. Another not only lives her Nigerian culture, but desires to pass it, unchanging, to her daughter. But her daughter prefers her own Britishness, which she has fought hard to accept and be accepted in.

    The book's format allows for a full telling of an individual's prosopography. First, we hear from one woman, giving her background, her experiences, and her views on her life and work. A following chapter will tell the story of another person, until it slowly dawns on us that she is related -- by blood, marriage, or heritage -- to a previous person in the book. Then another individual's profle is told, and that person gives insight into previous -- and perhaps a future -- character.

    It's a compelling collection of tales, full of surprises, evocative yet pointed in its writing, colorful in its descriptions, and sensitive in its narrative.While it may not show the full panoply of women's views and stories, it tells a wide and impressive range.

Book Review: My Sister, the Serial Killer

My Sister, the Serial Killer, by Oyinkan Braithwaite

The thing you have to know about this book is that is it a well-written tale with intriguingly described and mostly likeable chracters. Except for adding a few local quirks, the fact that it is set in Nigeria is mostly irrelevant.

But all of this is spoiled by an ending that is confusing and unsatisfying. I'll avoid getting into why I think that to avoid spoilers. Suffice to say that I turned the page and found out I had just read the final chapter and was moving on to the acknowledgements page. I thought I has missed something.

Before that, though, it was a quirky, fun book. Yes, the title is accurate. The opening chapter gets started right away on why that is. The narrator, Korede, make no bones about her sister's proclivities, or her own participation in covering up those crimes.

If it were non-fiction, it would be disturbing. But as fiction it works in a bizarre, if facetious manner. Korede probes her motives in excusing her sister's actions. She has mixed feelings, sometimes justifying, oftentimes condemning, her sister's murders, but seems unwilling to actually stop them. Why? Her sister has the privilege of being pretty.

The resemblance is there -- we share the same mouth, the same eyes -- but Ayoola looks like a Bratz doll, and I resemble a voodoo figurine.

Ayoola seems blithely unaware of the consequences of her actions. She neither plans her murders, nor thinks about them afterward. She fully expects Korede to solve any fall out. Korede feels compelled, even obligated, to protect her younger sister. She enjoys literally cleaning up Ayoola's messes and organizing the fixes.

So it's kind of the saga of two sisters: One responsible; one not, both accepting of their lot in life. Or it's about being the breaker or the fixer. Or maybe it's just a story about various ways to stab men and clean up afterwards, told in two-part harmony.

Whatever, it's an enjoyable read. Just don't expect any answers.

This Week in Books, 10th Ed. Black Authors

Black Authors White People Should Read

In the past few years I have made a concerted effort to read more female writers and writers of color. Last year, I started counting, and half of the authors I read were women, and more than a quarter were people of color. I am improving from the days of reading almost exclusively white male authors.

So in honor of Black History Month, I am recommending several writers of colors and their books, and what I have learned from them.

Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan: With this novel, set in the 19th Century, Edugyan gives us an extraordinary work filled with powerful and explosive  writing, Through the title character, Edugyan shows some of the true horrors of slavery, not just in the routine dehumanization of people of color, but in the lifelong impact it has on them, She shows the depravity of its systemic brutality. She shows how it allows white people to decry its savagery while simultaneously benefiting from it.


Red at the Bone, by Jacqueline Woodson: Woodson goes a step beyond the present, and shows how history and family and ancestory affect black lives today, She shows how bigotry and hate and violence in the past impacts the present and the future for black Americans. Bonus book: Read her Another Brooklyn, about groing up black in Brooklyn.


On the Come Up, by Angie Thomas: Thomas uses Bri, the smart, hip, talented, and ambitious protagonist, to show us what it's like to grow up as a 16-year-old black girl living in black ghetto in an otherwise white world.  Bri discoves how people judge her through lenses tinged with bias and outright bigotry. Her teachers condemn her as "aggressive." White parents claim her rap lyrics causeviolence. Many -- even her fans and neighbors -- see Bri as little more than a ghetto hoodrat.

My Name is Leon, by Kit De Waal: A British writer of Irish and Kittian descent, De Waal writes about a mixed-race child in England trying to find his way. After Leon's mother falls ill, social services take him and his younger, white brother, who is adopted almost immediately. Leon stays with his white foster mother. He learns the difficulties in being a black boy in white Britain while bonding with a group of black men from the West Indies.


Celestial Bodies, by Jokha Alharthi: It tells the stories of a multi-generational family growing up in Oman at a time of massive societal change in the Middle Eastern country. It's the first book originally wriitten in Arabic to win the Man Booker prize, It's mostly about three sisters trying to adjust to the changing culture, and it also explains the village of al-Awafi where they live. It does so through many voices, which reach a cohesive whole that is sad, but compelling and illuminating.

Book Review: The Water Dancer

The Water Dancer, by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates brings some powerful writing to evoke the abject horrors of slavery. 

His descriptions of the denial of the basic humanity and dignity to those enslaved are anguished and compelling. He doesn't just tell, but he shows their stories through a range of characters who represent the Tasked, those existing under the yoke of slavery; the Quality, the owners and their family, who perpetuate yet remain enfeebled under the system; and the Low, the vast majority of poor whites who are among its most voracious defenders because it allows them to appear to build themselves up while tearing others down.

The novel depicts a daily horror show of the trepidation, fear, and devastation of a people bought, sold, and beaten as part of a system that degrades and humiliates them and their families. Its shows how the hope of freedom elevates the meaning of the word to its truest sense -- allowing one to live and love without qualm.

It is a gem of a novel, important for both its revelations and its story of hope.

But yet.

It's not perfect. Weaving in and out of the tale is the thread of magic realism -- the idea that it takes something beyond reality to end this evil and to bring people home. I think it subtracts from the efforts of  those who consistently laid their lives on the line to present the notion that supernatural assistance was required.

Another flaw is more prosaic: it felt at times to be a disjointed narrative, lacking a clear trail from

event to event, causing readers to stop in their tracks to re-evaluate.

Still, it's a fine book. The characters are strong, courageous, and human. They are male and female. The tale is clearly driven by its main black characters, which is as it should be because it is their story.

Through Coates, a student and scholar of African-American literature, history, and philosophy, the characters come alive through stirring words and vivid actions. Some are figments of Coates' imagination; others are drawn from historical figures.

All are remarkable, and present an evocative tale of a shameful time when white people sold and abused their fellow humans simply because of the color of their skins.

Book Review: Wife of the Gods

Wife of the Gods, by Kwei Quartey

This is your basic detective novel, set in the west African nation of Ghana. The former makes it meh. The latter makes it worth reading -- at least for an old white guy in America, whose knowledge of African culture is, shall we say, lacking.

Now, I won't pretend this made me an expert on Ghanaian ways. But it did teach me a few things, left me wanting more, and, in the end, told a decent story.

The story introduces us to Darko Dawson, an inspector detective with the Ghanaian police, who lives and works in the capital city of Accra. He's a typical fictional detective -- good at his jobs, but with quirks and some personal problems. Dawson's quirks and problems include a quickness to violence, a fondness for smoking marijuana, a mother who mysteriously disappeared while he was still a child, and a son with a heart disease. All of these become plot-points in the book.

Ghana, on the Gulf of Guinea, is outlined in red.

The story starts with the finding of the body of a young female AIDS worker in the fictional town of Ketanu, in the Volta Region in the east of Ghana. Dawson has a connection with the area -- he grew up there, and speaks the local dialect. So the police detective is sent to investigate the potential homicide.

But his visit there is not with problems -- he doesn't like leaving his wife and young son. The assignment seems like a punishment of some kind -- and he must deal with family issues left over from his youth. And while he knows the area, he has problems with the local police chief, and with the fetish priests -- local religious leaders who actions seem more self-serving than providing for their flock. They often act like and portray themselves as gods, and have many wives, often young girls who have been awarded to the priests for various reasons.

The book explores all these issues, dealing with local and tribal customs, and with the very nature of religion and the men who use it to dominate others. It's a common enough issue that we see all around us, no matter where we live.

The problems and the solutions are universal, although the details are African.